25 February, 2008
American trade union leaders have vowed to continue blocking the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in the US Congress, following a two-hour meeting on 13 February in Bogotá with President Álvaro Uribe and Attorney General Mario Iguarán Arana. That is because the Colombian government gave them no guarantee that justice would be served over trade union murders and human rights abuses.
The US union leaders, representing national labour centre AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers (USW), and Communications Workers’ of America (CWA), met on 12 February with a panel from Colombian national centres CUT, CTC, and CGT. The Colombian unionists urged the American labour leaders to oppose the free-trade agreement until Colombia takes uncompromising action to halt trade union violence, and bring those responsible to justice.
The American delegation was composed of AFL-CIO Vice President Emerita Linda Chavez-Thompson, CWA President Larry Cohen, and USW Legal Counsel Dan Kovalik. The trade unionists told Uribe that his 2005 reconciliation act, the Justice and Peace Law, has failed. They urged him to take sharper measures to halt the judicial impunity that Colombia is granting the murderers of trade unionists.
The USW said 443 trade unionists have been assassinated since Uribe took office in 2002. Although the number of killings in 2007 was down to 38, five murders have already occurred in 2008. The USW’s Kovalik said only 3% of these murders have been successfully prosecuted to conviction.
Over a 21-period in the South American country, from 1986 to the close of 2007, 2,557 trade unionists have been assassinated. Representatives from the union Unite in the UK also participated in the Colombia trip earlier this month.