By Dennis Grammenos
The neo-liberal agenda is being imposed on Colombian workers through the union-busting overhaul of the country's labour code and the unrelenting terror of death squads.
The anti-union onslaught has taken its toll on Colombia's labour movement. Less than 6% of the work force is still unionised. In the private sector, the figure is just over 4%, whereas in the public sector, teachers alone account for three quarters of unionised workers.
The dire situation facing organised labour is justified by reference to that country's intensive counter-insurgency war. Abroad, especially in the United States, it is explained away by invoking the mirage of the so-called war on drugs.
An insidious defamation campaign has sought to link organised labour to Colombia's left-wing guerrilla movements. As a result, unions are a major target of right-wing death squads which have been operating over the past couple of decades with the acquiescence — and, often, sponsorship — of the security forces and multinational corporations like British Petroleum, Nestle and Coca-Cola.
In this dirty war against labour, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, Colombia's largest and most progressive labour confederation, has had more than 2300 of its leaders and activists assassinated since it was founded in 1986. In keeping with the impunity that characterises the terrorist campaign against progressive forces in that country, only one suspect was ever charged by the Colombian state for any of those assassinations.
In conjunction with the gruesome terror of the death squads, unionists have been subjected to incessant prosecution by the Colombian state.
The main weapon has been the criminalisation of social protest, whereby the law is manipulated to make illegal the normal functions of unions and their memberships.
In particular, in 1988 the government adopted Decree No. 180, which reads: "Whoever provokes or maintains the population or a sector of the same in a state of unrest or terror, by means of acts that place at risk the life, the physical integrity or the liberty of persons or the edifices of the communication media, transport, processing or transportation of fluids and fuel plants, using means capable of creating hardship will face up to 20 years in prison."
In effect, this decree criminalises job actions in the telecommunications, transportation or energy sectors, allowing the government to charge Telecom workers as "terrorists" for holding a strike!
This state of affairs has served to break the kneecaps of the labour movement. During June, telecommunications workers staged a 10-day strike to protest plans to privatise Colombia's Telecom, and to demand that the company respect the agreements on pensions that had been negotiated by the three unions (ATT, ASITEL and SITELECOM).
The government declared the strike "illegal", bringing considerable pressure on the unions to accept an agreement that would end the strike and diffuse the very tense situation that had developed in light of the refusal of Telecom president, Jose Blackburn Cortez, to negotiate in good faith. By declaring the strike "illegal", the Colombian government cleared the way to invoke Decree No. 180, under which union leaders and organisers can be arrested on charges of "terrorism".
In 1992, the government declared a Telecom workers' strike illegal, deeming it an act of "terrorism". Thirteen union leaders were arrested and tried. They were arbitrarily held for one year before the trumped-up charges were dropped.
Colombian unionists are calling for the help from progressive unionists in the United States and elsewhere. They need their frightful plight publicised. They need refugee support for unionists who have to flee Colombia. They need US-based multinationals to be put under pressure to clean-up their murderous records in Colombia.
[Abridged from Colombian Labour Monitor. For more information, please contact the CLM at PO Box 66, Urbana, IL 61801-0066 or e-mail <clm@prairienet.org>. A web page is under construction at <http://www.prairienet.org/clm>.]