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Thirteen unions affiliated with UNI met with Colombia’s Vice President

Published: 7 April 2011
Google translate: 







 Phillip Jennings, UNI General Secretary, regards this as a big opportunity for social dialogue.

Bogotá, April 5th, 2011. “A door has been opened, let us step in!”, said UNI Global Union’s General Secretary Philip Jennings to Colombian workers whose unions are affiliated with UNI, after the meeting he and the members of the Liaison Council held with Colombia’s vice President, Angelino Garzón.

When they met in his office, the Vice President apologised for not being able to attend the opening ceremony of the XII UNI Americas’ Regional Executive Committee and adopted a posture of dialogue and consensus after reading the letter UNI gave his representative, urging the National Government to take certain measures to protect Colombian workers’ rights.

After listening to the description made by Leonor Sierra and Hildebrando León – members of UNI Liaison Council in Colombia – of the situation of multinational companies’ employees in Colombia, Vice President Garzón invited the 13 unions affiliated with UNI to meet with him and discuss the creation of a liaison council to tackle employment issues.

Garzón said that he was interested in working jointly with UNI Liaison Council in Colombia and stated that the country must have a Code of Ethics, because they could no longer admit multinational companies’ abusive behaviour that translates into collective pacts for example, similar in content to unions’ list of demands but that, pursuant to the law, only cover non-organised workers.

The Vice President agreed with UNI on the importance of intensifying social dialogue and criticised the behaviour of multinational companies in the country. He also promised to combat anti-union sentiment because as he said: “labour rights are human rights.”

Philip Jennings was very pleased with the meeting and said that this would be a great chance to discuss with national multinational companies. Therefore, he asked the members of the unions affiliated with UNI to prepare a dossier with detailed information about employees’ situation, to be submitted to the National Government.

For more information, contact: raul.requena@uniglobalunion.org

267/Translated by UNI americas