News

This week’s labour news did not come from Colombia but from Washington DC, where Congressmen Jim McGovern and George Miller presented on Tuesday a report on the progress of the Labour Action Plan (LAP) between Colombia and the United States as a pre-condition for the implementation of the FTA between the two countries. 

McGovern and Miller, who were recently in Colombia evaluating the LAP, are part of the Congressional Caucus for Monitoring Labour Rights in Colombia, created in the House of Representatives of the United States after the passage of the FTA. The 53-page report focuses on labour abuses in Colombia and violence against trade unionists, both in impunity. 

After the report was presented, CNN in Spanish carried out a long interview with Jim McGovern, which you can see on the following link:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/10/30/dusa--colombia-tlc.cnn.html 

While the report highlights some of the Colombian government’s efforts, especially the creation of the Ministry of Labour and legislation to stop labour intermediation by cooperatives, it says that the state has fallen short in fulfilling its obligations, many of which have not yet materialized. It states that indirect hiring continues under different names, not as cooperatives;  that employers continue massively laying off workers who try to organise unions; that inspection systems in sensitive sectors of the economy are "not effective",  and that often labour violations are not punished or fined.

 As for union busting violence, threats and murders of trade unionists continue as impunity is the norm; it reports 413 threats and 22 workers murdered for their union activity in 2012, it highlights that in 90% of anti-union violence cases, court decisions do not result in imprisonment, and concludes that only 4% of Colombian workers are unionized due to the fear of violence and retaliation by employers. 

At the end, McGovern and Miller include recommendations for both the U.S. and Colombia, and warn that the implementation of the LAP will be taken into account when approving future FTAs, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership currently being negotiated. They also ask that formalisation of agreements do not include outsourcing mechanisms like the SAS, and meet the goal of establishing  direct employment, permanent, with the right to unionise and collective bargaining.

 Source: ENS