Alison Dellit
Colombian oil workers have returned to work after a victorious 37-day strike against the privatisation of the state-run oil company Ecopetrol.
Colombia's government has been progressively privatising Ecopetrol through a restructure of the industry that has awarded favourable contracts to multinationals for the exploration and production of oil fields. It also announced the sale of one refinery and abandoned the maintenance of another refinery, which workers believed was to enable it to be dismantled and then sold off.
In a May 14 statement, the workers' union, USO, explained: "This fight is against the control of oil by multinationals that start wars in Colombia and around the world, [and against] state policies of privatisation where corrupt governments allow them. In Colombia the corrupt and criminal government of [Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe is for privatisation, for the handing-in of our natural resources, but the USO and the Colombian people are fighting for the sovereign management of our industry."
The agreement reached on May 26 between the USO and the Colombian government is a big victory. It agrees that oil fields now operated by outside firms will revert to Ecopetrol control once the contracts expire, although the pay-out terms are likely to be pretty favourable to the multinationals.
The strike was a particularly bitter one. According to global oil industry union ICEM, it caused production losses of US$180,000 a day, despite government claims that its "contingency plans" would ensure no losses.
These plans were brutal. In defiance of international conventions, the Colombian government declared the strike illegal on the basis that the oil industry was an "essential service". The government installed armed military units inside oil fields and refineries in an attempt to stop workers striking. It sacked more then 250 USO members, including the union's president.
The pressure on the workers to go back to work was intense. The International Confederation of Trade Unions describes Colombia as "the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist". In 2002, 184 Colombian unionists were assassinated, nine disappeared, 27 were kidnapped and 17 survived murder attempts. In addition, 80 chose exile and 139 were victims of arbitrary detention.
The agreement preserves the pensions of those sacked, and allows them to reapply for their jobs through an agreed-upon arbitration process. Ecopetrol management and the government had sought to eliminate oil workers' pensions, as well as reducing the work force.
The impact of the victory was summed up by Eric Lee in the regular newsletter of international workers' rights website Labourstart (<http://www.labourstart.org>): "We often report on Colombian labour news and it's usually a litany of kidnappings, murders and other brutal acts of repression against trade unionists. It's good to be able to report on a victory for a change."
From Green Left Weekly, June 9, 2004.
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