CWA President Cohen briefs Senators, Staff on Colombia Labor and Free Trade Agreement
April 3, 2008, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
As a member of the AFL-CIO delegation to Colombia, February 14-16, I had an opportunity to hear first-hand the experiences of hundreds of courageous working men and women who are fighting against conditions difficult for us to imagine as they persevere to gain real democracy with bargaining and workplace rights for Colombian workers.
The status of workers in Colombia – a nation where out of a workforce of 18 million, just 2 million are considered to be employees -- is a critical part of the fight over the Free Trade Agreement. Trade agreements should balance not just finance, capital and investment, but must address the status and bargaining rights of workers. In the United States, we have a long way to go to restore bargaining rights for workers, and Colombia lags far behind our nation. We in the labor movements in both countries want to help shape how the global economy works – for all of us.
I came away from this trip with a bracelet that bears the name of a woman trade unionist who had been murdered. I also came away fully inspired by what we saw and heard – and we met for many hours with activists from every union and organization that sought to meet with us – and fully confident that Colombian activists can and will change their country.
Following is a summary of our meetings with unionists and government officials.
Unionists
In the last 20 years, 2,574 unionists have been murdered, including 39 in 2007 and 5 so far this year. But as we heard from union leaders, the unions have been killed as well. Collective bargaining coverage has fallen to less than 1 percent of the 18 million adult workers (population about 45 million). Colombia is the only nation recognized as a political democracy with lower collective bargaining coverage than the U.S. In fact, only 2 million, or 1 in 9 workers are classified as employees, the rest are contractors or working for "so-called" collectives and cooperatives simply to deny them employee status.
Virtually all journalists are classified as contractors who must sell advertising along with their stories. They also are prime targets for murder depending on what they write. The International Federation of Journalists supports an organization of journalists but none has employee status or collective bargaining rights. I met with the leader of this group who is solely focused on moving forward despite the danger.
Telecom workers are regularly fired, as were nearly 10,000 just recently from the main telecom company operated by Telefonica (Spain), the fourth largest global telecom after China Mobile, ATT and Vodafone. UNI telecoms – the global labor network of telecom unions -- have a global agreement with Telefonica which means nothing in Colombia (or in Puerto Rico), despite widespread recognition and bargaining across South America. The mass firings are the fastest way to gut the union and cut costs and there are currently no telecom workers with bargaining coverage.
Flight attendants and pilots have bargaining rights at Avianca, the Colombian airline. But they also came to the mass meeting and told of difficulties getting visas and other forms of intimidation that restricted their rights.
Public workers, including teachers, described how their rights were wiped out and how many of their leaders were murdered. Hector Giraldo, a government worker leader in Antioquia, has twice fled to the United States where CWA District 1 families have protected him. Hector spoke of how yet another round of privatization was sweeping through his membership.
Municipal workers from Cali told me how 51 leaders were fired. Now, even years after the International Labor Organization found that they were fired for union activity, they have not been reinstated. I brought their case directly to the Labor Minister the next day but have little hope that this will help.
Oil workers, auto workers, health care workers, all told the same story—assassination, firings, restructuring, falling standard of living and unemployment.
All of us, Colombian and American alike, wore bracelets with the names of women unionists who were murdered and received a paragraph about their life. My bracelet is inscribed Figueroa Magnolia Apia, 11-Mar-97, the day this teacher and union leader was murdered. In 2007 alone, 24 teachers were murdered and while we met at the Teachers Union Hall, two teachers came seeking sanctuary.
More:
http://www.cwa-union.org/issues/cohens-speeches/cwa-president-cohen-briefs-senators-staff-on-colombia-labor-and-free-trade-agreement.html~~~~~~Chiquita has a long, bloody history, extending far beyond Colombia, and recent history. Anyone who hasn't learned about United Food's (Chiquita's) connection to Eisenhower and the CIA's overthrow of Guatemala's elected President Jacobo Guzman in 1954 will get a good foundation for putting all the evil actions throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America by United Fruit which came later.A "killing field" in the Americas:
US policy in Guatemala
~snip~
United Fruit Company
Under dictator Jorqe Ubico (1931-1944), American-owned United Fruit Company (UFC) gained control of forty-two percent of Guatemala's land, and was exempted from taxes and import duties. The three main enterprises in Guatemala -- United Fruit Company, International Railways of Central America, and Empress Electrica -- were American-owned (and controlled by United Fruit Company). Seventy-seven percent of all exports went to the US and sixty-five percent of imports came from the US.
"10 Years of Springtime"
Repressive governments have plagued Guatemala throughout its history, with alternating waves of dictators being the rule. But, between 1945 and 1954, there was a period of enlightenment -- an experiment with democracy called the "10 Years of Springtime" -- that started with the election of Juan Jose Arevalo to the presidency.
While in power from 1945 to 1951, Arevalo established the nation's social security and health systems and a government bureau to look after Mayan concerns. Arévalo's liberal regime experienced many coup attempts by conservative military forces, but the attempts were not successful.
Arévalo was followed by Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán who became president in democratic elections in 1951. At the time, 2% of landowners owned 70% of the arable land and farm laborers were kept in debt slavery by these landowners. Arbenz continued to implement the liberal policies of Arevalo, and instituted an agrarian reform law to break up the large estates and foster individually owned small farms. The land reform program involved redistribution of 160,000 acres of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit Company. United Fruit was compensated for its land.
United Fruit, Eisenhower and the end of reform
United Fruit was a state within the Guatemalan state. It not only owned all of Guatemala's banana production and monopolized banana exports, it also owned the country's telephone and telegraph system, and almost all of the railroad track. In addition to redistributing United Fruit land, the government also began competing with United Fruit in the production and export of bananas.
Important people in the ruling circles of the US, involved with United Fruit Company, used their influence to convince the US government to step in. (Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' law firm had prepared United Fruit's contracts with Guatemala; his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, belonged to United Fruit's law firm; John Moors Cabot, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, was the brother of a former United Fruit president; President Eisenhower's personal secretary was married to the head of United Fruit's Public Relations Department.)
In 1954, Eisenhower and Dulles decided that Arbenz finally had to go, and the US State Department labeled Guatemala "communist". On this pretext, US aid and equipment were provided to the Guatemalan Army. The US also sent a CIA army and CIA planes. They bombed a military base and a government radio station, and overthrew Arbenz Guzmán, who fled to Cuba.
The coup restored the stranglehold on the Guatemalan economy of both the landed elite and US economic interests. President Eisenhower was willing to make the poor, illiterate Guatemalan peasants pay in hunger and torture for supporting land reform, and for trying to attain a better future for themselves and their families. In order to ensure ever-increasing profits for an American corporation, the US State Department, the CIA, and United Fruit Company had succeeded in taking freedom and land from Guatemala's peasants, unions from its workers, and hope for a democratic Guatemala from all of its people.
Aided by the US, Colonel Castillo Armas became the new president. The US Ambassador furnished Armas with lists of radical opponents to be eliminated, and the bloodletting promptly began. Under Armas, thousands were arrested and many were tortured and killed. United Fruit got all its land back. As an extra present, the Banana Worker's Union was banned. Armas disenfranchised one-third of the voters by barring illiterates from voting. He outlawed all political parties, labor confederations, and peasant organizations. He closed down opposition newspapers and burned "subversive" books. The "Springtime" had ended.
More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
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