By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 13 2008 (IPS)

Cases of violence against trade unionists and violations of labour standards committed in Colombia were presented to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) panel of legal experts, which will instruct the Colombian state to modify its policies and will hold the government accountable, said labour representatives from that country.

In its report to the ILO’s 97th International Labour Conference, which concluded its annual session in Geneva Friday, the panel of experts – the ILO Committee on the Application of Standards – expressed concern over the rise in violent acts against trade unionists in Colombia in the first half of the year.

Luciano Sanín, director of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Trade Union School) in Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city, told IPS that 26 trade unionists had been killed in that country this year, as of May 30 – a 70 percent increase on the same period in 2007.

The Committee urged the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe ‘’to take further steps to reinforce the available protective measures and to render more efficient and expedient the investigations of murders of trade unionists and the identification of all of its instigators.”

The Committee, whose mandate is to monitor compliance of international labour standards in ILO member states, told the Colombian government that such measures should include “enhanced investment of necessary resources in order to combat impunity, including through the nomination of additional judges specifically dedicated to resolving cases of violence against trade unionists.”

“All of these steps are essential elements to ensure that the trade union movement might finally develop and flourish in a climate free from violence,” said the Committee in its conclusions on the case of Colombia.

Of those 34 million dollars, around 11 million went to the protection programme for trade unionists, he said.

“For us, the problem is not that you have to go around with five bodyguards, in two armoured vehicles followed by three motorcycles,” said Alfonso Velásquez, a member of the executive committee of Colombia’s central trade union, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT).

“The real problem is that we labour leaders need to be able to do our job of organising workers,” he told IPS.

The Committee also said the government must guarantee that all workers, including public employees, can form unions without prior authorisation, and are free to join them.

The question of the freedom to organise is one of the issues of greatest concern to labour leaders in Colombia. “In the western world, Colombia is the political system most contrary to labour freedoms,” said Sanín. “And worldwide, it is only outdone by the military regime in Burma.”

The issue was discussed in meetings with U.S. legislators who visited Colombia during the debate on the free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia – the approval of which was finally blocked by the Democratic Party in the U.S. Congress.

The lawmakers asked the Colombian trade unionists when they believed the level of respect for labour rights in Colombia will have recovered sufficiently so as to make the free trade agreement viable.

“We told them that would happen the day freedom to organise in Colombia was as well respected as free enterprise,” said Sanín.

“There is a general offensive around the world against trade union freedom and labour rights,” he said. “The dream of the neoliberals is to have labour relations without labour rights and unions.”

But in Colombia, which is in the grip of a nearly five-decade civil war, the global trend against labour rights is mixed up with violence and a deep-rooted culture of anti-unionism, he said.

Conditions for labour in Colombia are “terrible,” said the expert, who pointed out that only one-quarter of all workers – less than five million out of 19 million – enjoy any degree of labour protection or social benefits, with formal work contracts.

And only five of every 100 workers belong to a trade union, down from 15 percent just a few years ago, he added.

The absolute number of trade union members has remained stable for 20 years, at around 800,000. But in proportion to the sharp growth of the economically active population, the percentage has dropped to one-third, he explained.

Another aspect is the right to strike. Of 19 million workers, just 200,000 – around one percent – can legally exercise that right, said Sanín.

“When we pointed this out at the ILO conference, it was considered appalling,” he said. Colombia is nowhere near respecting international labour standards, he added.

With respect to the violence, the figures from the Escuela Nacional Sindical indicate that 2,669 trade unionists were killed between 1986 and April 2008 – an average of one every three days. And in 97 percent of the murders, no one has been brought to justice.

Sanín acknowledged that in the last five years there has been “a significant fall” in the number of murders of labour activists. But, he said, an increase has been seen over the last year.

Nineteen of the latest incidents of violence and intimidation involved threats against trade unionists from the “Black Eagles”, which Sanín identified as paramilitary groups.

The far-right paramilitary militias negotiated a partial demobilisation with the rightwing Uribe administration, but there are abundant reports that they have reorganised and remain active, under names like the Black Eagles.

Several murders have been committed since Mar. 6, when nationwide protest marches were held in homage to the victims of paramilitary violence, said Sanín.

There was also an increase in killings when the Colombian government experienced the frustration of the free trade agreement being blocked in the U.S. Congress, he said.

Sanín interpreted that as vengeance against the trade union movement because of its mobilisation against violations of labour rights and its protests against the continued violent activities of paramilitary groups

“This explains the rise in violence that is punishing the social movement that has put up the most resistance to this regime,” he said.

With regard to the treatment of the case of Colombia in the ILO, Velásquez said that since 1996, when labour conditions in the country began to be discussed in the international body, “very important opportunities have been wasted.”

And the International Labour Conference session that ended Friday “was no exception,” he said.

Sanín, on the other hand, said that in the history of ILO debates on conditions in Colombia, this year’s was the most in-depth, with a three-hour discussion and a 40-page document in which all of the arguments and observations set forth by the government, trade unions and employers were compiled.

By comparison, the case of Iraq, “which in my view is even worse than that of Colombia,” was only debated for 40 minutes by the Committee on the Application of Standards, and was summed up in just seven pages, even though there is an invading army in that country attacking the trade union movement, he said.

“Our Iraqi colleagues reported that the U.S. army bursts into the trade union offices and takes away their computers, and also that it blocks collective bargaining in the oil industry, no less,” he said.

As of Friday, the situation of Colombia is once again under periodic review by the ILO standards system, said Sanín. That means the ILO’s normal mechanisms will begin to pressure Bogotá to carry out modifications in terms of legislation and respect of labour practices.

The ILO “is not going to tell President Uribe that he is a paramilitary, of which I have no doubt,” said Sanín. “But it will tell him: you have to change these laws. That is what we have achieved now.”

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