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UNI Global Union urges Colombia to continue on the path to peace after President Juan Manuel Santos wins the Nobel Peace Prize.  We congratulate President Santos on winning the prize and see it as a recognition of the engagement of the Colombian people in the journey to peace and encourage them not to give up.

“We are disappointed with the outcome of the recent referendum and, just days after, we are confident the award will encourage all parties to continue the path to peace,” said UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings. “After a tough week, Colombia deserves recognition for their attempts to reach peace.

“Over 5 decades of conflict have taken the lives of 260,000 Colombians – the Nobel Peace Prize should reinforce the message that Santos and others must redouble their efforts to achieve a lasting peace and rectify the huge levels of inequality in the country”, said Regional Secretary of UNI Americas Adriana Rosenzvaig. “We would also urge the President to honour his promises to respect freedom of association, collective bargaining and rights to join a union.”

Last year the Nobel Peace Prize was won by the Tunisian Quartet, which included the Tunisian trade union centre, the UGTT. It was an important milestone as it recognised the role of unions in the dialogue to shape a new constitution which included respect for labour rights and standards.

After so much tragedy and dreadful loss of life suffered by the Colombian people engaged in the union movement, the peace prize recognises their sacrifices and how key those labour standards are to peace. We look to all those multinationals operating in Colombia to recognise that the message being sent by the Nobel Peace Prize award is to respect workers’ rights.

We look forward to our UNI Americas conference in Colombia in December where unions from throughout the hemisphere will assemble to encourage the path to peace.