Jump to main content
IndustriALL logotype
Article placeholder image

Colombian glass workers fight union-busting

Add to favourites

Read this article in:

16 June, 2012Affiliates of IndustriALL Global Union have been asked to act at a critical moment for our glass worker affiliate in Colombia, Sintravidricol, they've been asked to write to the US-based glass packaging manufacturer Owens Illinois to protest their union-busting at the Cogua Cundimarca plant, the largest in Colombia.

 

Owens Illinois has a long history of mistreatment of its Colombian employees, with violations including reducing workforce levels to dangerous levels, increased worktime with no rest, no worker replacements, outsourcing sections of the manufacturing process, acting unilaterally and ignoring union offers of cooperation, repeated breach of the collective agreement, and causing unsafe working conditions.

The company monopolises the industry in Colombia and is now pushing hard to destroy the Sintravidricol union inside Owens Illinois by systematically replacing Sintravidricol members in permanent jobs with outsourced contract and agency jobs.

Some of the workers being laid off have worked ten years at the company. Now they are being dismissed because of company policy to get rid of the union. Workers attempting to use their labour rights are attacked by a management using the company administrative complaint procedures as their key tool to attack basic labour freedoms.

The union in Colombia has requested letters from all supporters to demand management ends this attack, and begins to respect the workers core trade union rights. Click here to write to Juan Manuel Posada Pinzon, Human Resources Director at the Cogua plant, Ricardo Torres Lopez, Labour Relations Manager, and Sintravidricol.

Related Articles