Chris White Online

At the ICTUR centre in London I met Miguel Puerto the Columbian/ Latin American Coordinator. I asked him what is the main issue. Armed conflict in Colombia targeting trade unionists.

The violence in Colombia has caused over 250,000 deaths, has led to the internal displacement of over 3 million people and the external displacement of some 4 million. This violence isn’t a new phenomenon. Over the past four decades, Colombia has been afflicted by an armed conflict between the security forces and paramilitaries on the one side and guerrillas forces on the other, and yet successive governments have failed to deal with its roots.

The vast majority of victims of the conflict are civilians. There are persistent reports of killings of and threats against trade unionists and human rights defenders, mainly by paramilitary groups; enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial killings by the security forces, and killing and kidnappings of civilians by guerrillas groups.

What is the political situation?
Colombia is going through a very particular political situation that contributes to creating a hostile atmosphere towards the exercise of labour rights and freedom of association. The situation is worsened by the more and more frequent practice of the Colombian government of making declarations against the legitimacy of the trade union movement, linking it with guerrilla groups or justifying anti-union violence as violence against armed actors in the conflict, while at the same time singling out the trade union movement as being part of an armed group.

The violence against union activists from us in Australia is extraordinary. Give me details?

Over the last 20 years, more than 2515 individuals, members of union organizations, have been assassinated in Colombia; without further explanation necessary, these numbers reflect a true and methodical extermination of the union movement, equivalent to genocide. The average number of assassinations per year is 120. In addition, hundreds of trade union organizations were destroyed, many strikes were declared illegal and thousands of men and women workers were fired.

So there are few human rights?

Almost all human rights violations against unionized individuals in Colombia are treated with impunity. Among the most visible features of such impunity, we can mention:

the high number of violations where there are no suspects whatsoever; the very small number of investigations that reach the trial stage; and the duration of the proceedings that according to international law standards, are equivalent to denegation of justice.

What about the ILO?

For approximately the last ten years, legislation and practice in Colombia have been the focus of observations by the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations and the Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA – the ILO body in charge to examining complaints about violations of freedom of association). These bodies verify that year after year Colombia has denied the rights to collective negotiation, to strike and to freely constitute trade unions.

What about the right to strike that I reseach?

Most of the violations to the human rights of union members in Colombia are linked to labour conflicts (civil and workers’ strikes, collective bargaining and the creation of unions). These considerations show that the violations have been carried out in the context of the defence of labour rights, and as a result the armed conflict. For this reason, male and female union members that have suffered violations should not be seen under the light of casual or collateral victims of the armed conflict.

Freedom of association is recognized under Colombian law and Colombia’s 1991 Constitution. The 1991 Constitution recognizes the right of trade unions to organize and to strike (except for workers in services considered essential). The Constitutional Court established that International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions No. 98 (on the right to organize and to bargain collectively) and No. 87 (on freedom of association and protection of the right to organize) should be considered as integral to the Constitution.

But in practice, few workers in Colombia can enjoy their fundamental rights to form and join a union, to bargain collectively and to strike, despite the fact that those were all enshrined in the 1991 Constitution.

Colombia holds the record of being the country in which the most men and women have been murdered as a direct result of their trade union work.

Acts of violence against trade unionists further include kidnappings, attempted assassinations, disappearances, threats, detentions, tortures and forced displacement, all in a climate of impunity. In addition to the large number of unionists killed, the rate of creation of new trade unions had been in decline. There are administrative obstacles which impede the registration of new trade unions even though Colombian law establishes that trade unions acquire legal status automatically on their creation.

This led the ILO to conclude in a recent mission to Colombia that

“the climate of violence against trade unionists could only be understood within the context of the laws, policies and practices that it felt seriously undermined trade unionism in the country. Among the issues raised as having a severe impact on freedom of association and collective bargaining were: restructuring of companies to eliminate union representation, the use of cooperatives to disguise employment relationships and avoid unionization; subcontracting and the use of commercial and civil contracts to keep workplaces union free; collective accords and their impact on unions and collective bargaining; the use of the union contract; the denial of collective bargaining for public servants; obstacles to trade union registration; and the legal prohibition of the right to call for a strike in services not considered as essential stricto sensu, in many public services that are not essential stricto sensu…” (ILO Mission to Colombia October 2005).

These rights are closely related to other fundamental human rights such as the right to life, physical integrity and freedom of expression. As a member of the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States (OAS), Colombia has voluntarily undertaken a legal commitment to uphold the provisions set out in numerous international and regional human rights treaties.

Human and union rights are linked?

Trade unionists are human rights defenders. Human rights defenders are crucial actors in the struggle for political, social and economic rights. Human rights defenders are all those men and women whose actions – individual or collective – contribute to the effective elimination of all violations of fundamental rights and the Government has international obligations to protect human rights defenders.

In June 2006, during the 95th international conference on labour at the ILO, Colombia’s tripartite delegation signed an agreement “to foster the rights of association and democracy”. The goal of the agreement was to seek respect and guarantees for the right to union organization, union freedoms, collective bargaining, decent work, social dialogue, and the strengthening of democracy.

In order to promote criminal investigations, the General Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalia) established a sub-unit of prosecutors in different regions of the country to bring to court cases of violence against men and women who are trade union leaders and members. So far, the ILO’s permanent representation in Colombia has not fulfilled expectations, and has limited itself to holding meetings with the government, employers, public servants and union leaders of the country. The systematic violations of the human rights of union leaders and members, as well as to the unsustainable situation of impunity, remain unchanged. Until know, no resources have been made available and no actions have been undertaken. This situation continues to be serious and the Government continues to deny the true number of assassinations of Colombian union members.

What does the union movement demand?

In this context, the Colombian union movement demands access to the truth, guarantees, democracy, and in particular, collective reparations for the unions, as well as respect for the victims, the acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the union movement, and the elimination of all the obstacles that inhibit the exercise of union freedoms.

In conclusion, the human rights situation faced by trade unionists in Colombia remains critical. Successive Colombian governments have indeed implemented several policies to improve the safety of trade unionists, but these measures have been insufficient to effectively guarantee the safety of trade unionists. The long-term security of trade unionists depends on decisive action by the Colombian authorities to end the impunity which protects the vast majority of those responsible for attacks against them.

The repeated death threats and killings of trade unionists coupled with numerous arbitrary judicial proceedings against them and the virtual impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of these human rights abuses, represent a direct attack on the rights encompassed in ILO Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining and ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.

Further still, the human rights violations and abuses committed against trade unionists by all parties to the conflict are intended to undermine the legitimate work of trade union organizations, and the arbitrary judicial proceedings initiated against numerous trade union activists is designed to discredit their work.

We strongly encourage the support of the international Labour movement in our struggle/work and would welcome any kind of support to our work and to the Colombian trade unionists.

Unfortunately, the severity of the human rights crisis in Colombia still receives insufficient attention from the international labour movement, the legal profession, and international bodies such as the ILO.

ICTUR has been working with unionists and lawyers in Colombia since 2006 when it opened a Trade Union Rights Centre (TURC) in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital.

The TURC works to address impunity and to seek justice for the human rights violations suffered by trade unionists and their families and has already had a number of successful cases.

Please visit ICTUR’s website www.ictur.org for more information about our work in Colombia or contact me for any more detailed information about Colombian trade unions and how the South African labour movement might offer its support and solidarity.