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27 October, 2011
ICEM affiliate Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), the Oil Workers’ Union of Colombia, has led contract workers in the eastern Meta region oilfields for job security, fair wages, and the right to join their union throughout the summer. With mass protests and strikes occurring, progress was seemingly being made with the main sub-contractor, Pacific Rubiales, and the state oil company Ecopetrol.
But despite tripartite talks between USO, the Colombian government, and Pacific Rubiales, Canadian-based Pacific Rubiales suddenly pulled out of negotiations and signed an agreement with a yellow union, UTEN, undercutting USO, the legitimate bargaining partner. USO represents over 14,000 workers at the Rubiales and Quifa oilfields; UTEN represents no more than 700 and those are staff employed in the administrative payroll and logistics departments.
Recent strike by USO
Rubiales is Colombia’s largest producing oil field, and together with Quifa accounts for one quarter of Colombia’s overall production.
Pacific Rubiales gave the sack to over 500 contract workers the same day that it signed with UTEN, 21 October. In the days that followed, all existing USO members among the contract employees have been threatened with dismissal if they do not switch allegiance to the company union. Pacific Rubiales, together with its puppet union UTEN, has also simultaneously conducted a vicious propaganda campaign denouncing USO and striking workers as terrorists.
Although government officials played a central role in the agreement to stop the most recent strike actions in September and establish a national tripartite bargaining table to reach an accord, the Colombian government has been complicit with Pacific Rubiales’s decision to sign with UTEN. In angry protest, USO again called 4,000 workers out on strike, with a full work stoppage that began on Monday, 24 October, and a permanent picket line assembled at the Rubiales and Quifa fields. The deal with UTEN specifically excludes contract workers who are organised by USO.
On 24 October, workers walked through the night to reach the permanent assembly the next day at the camp called “El Morichal.”
The Colombian military has now been deployed to the oilfields, and has constructed impassable barriers on the public roads that access the fields. ESMAD, the notorious Colombian riot police, are also present with 800 troops on hand to intimidate workers. The USO Central Committee member who informed police of the work stoppage was immediately arrested.
USO Vice-President German Osman, part of the negotiating team, reports that Pacific Rubiales has intentionally prolonged and delayed talks with his union while at the same time drawing up the phony labour accord with UTEN. On resuming the tripartite negotiations between USO, the government, and Pacific Rubiales, all sides agreed to a settlement deadline of 21 October. But company negotiators refused to bargain in good faith, while USO offered considerable reductions in wage demands.
The ICEM is lodging a protest with the Canadian company and the Colombian government.