News

UNI’s mission to Colombia heard an appeal for global solidarity to save the trade union movement in that country and condemned moves by the Colombian government to end funding for a project launched with the help of the International Labour Organisation.



UNI Mission meets UNI Liaison Committee



On the first day of the UNI global union visit, trade union centre CUT’s President Tarsicio Mora Godoy warned that there is no end in sight to government-inspired moves to weaken Colombian unions.

“We need the solidarity of the rest of the world - we want this government to respect trade union freedom,” said Tarsicio after briefing the UNI group.



Tarsicio Mora Godoy, CUT

The mission - led by General Secretary Philip Jennings and UNI-Americas Secretary Rodolfo Benitez - follows a call from the UNI Management Committee earlier this year for human and labour rights to be respected in Colombia and elsewhere.

It was prompted by the continuing assassination of union leaders and activists in Colombia, including the killing of bank union president Leonidas Gomez in March.

“Our commitment to Colombia is serious, real and long term,” said Philip Jennings. “We have projects in the field here, we are here to help our Liaison Committee and we want to make progress with private employers. Our aim is to help our organisations to grow and to change the situation in this country.”



The mission heard that 41 trade unionists have been killed so far this year - in spite of government claims that the killings are decreasing. All this in a country polarised by a continuing civil war and opponents easily demonised by allegations - however spurious - of links with the FARC guerillas.

But unions also face a fundamental, neo-liberal attack determined to eliminate unions entirely.



Global Compact meeting



“There is weak social dialogue, there is no political will to dialogue and there is a lack of corporate social responsibility,” said UNI Assistant General Secretary Raul Requena.

Privatisations, company closures, the hostility of multinationals to unions and laws that deliberately make it easier to give work to precarious workers (often in “cooperatives”) have fuelled a race to the bottom in wages and conditions and seriously weakened the trade union movement. Large unions in post and telecoms were effectively wiped out and only 2% of the potential labour force is now covered by secure job contracts.

Attempts by unions to change their own structures to adapt to globalisation and to launch new unions are blocked by government registration processes and controls.

“We are the only country in the world with no Minister of Labour or Minister of Health - we only have a Minister for “un”Protection,” said Tarsicio, who had only just finished briefing a tripartite group from the United Kingdom that included the conciliation and arbitration service ACAS and Connect UK’s Adrian Askew.



UNI's Philip Jennings with Connect UK's Adrian Askew



The UNI mission went to ILO offices in Bogota and expressed concern at the decision of the Uribe government to terminate funding to a group of projects after only 15 to 18 months instead of the four years originally pledged under strong pressure through the UN agency.

Without funding for the projects the ILO presence in Bogota could close down.

One key project has been training members of the judiciary in the application of international labour standards and conventions.

Employer proposals in the ILO brokered process have had little relationship to the tripartite work agreed in Geneva.



The attitude of multinationals to the core standards of the ILO - including the right to form unions and to bargain collectively - was an issue raised throughout the mission’s first day.

Global agreements with UNI to ensure those rights wherever the company operates around the world need to be policed and enforced. And dialogue with employers needs to be built through the help of initiatives like the United Nations’ Global Compact, said Philip Jennings. The mission met the Global Compact’s Paola Cubides in Bogota and discussed future cooperation.



The mission’s first day began with an early morning meeting with UNI affiliates who make up the UNI Colombia Liaison Committee.

Unions urged UNI to step up its presence in Colombia and called for greater unity among the Colombian trade union movement (currently in three union centres).

The UNI mission heard from bank and graphical unions and from activists involved in re-launching post and telecom unions (including leafleting Telefónica workers with details of the UNI-Telefónica global agreement that guarantees labour rights).

“To UNI you are all heroes - we have a profound attachment to you as people and as unions,” Philip Jennings told the union representatives. “It’s not enough to be democratic - you have to be able to live in a society free from fear and that is not the case in Colombia.”