 Regional leader of Columbia’s Central Trade Union Confederation CUT, Carlo Julio Díaz shows the bullet holes left on the office table resulting from the violent attack. A picture of a trade union activist murdered in the attack, Hugo Zapata, hangs on the left. Photo: Javier Cuevas |
Johanna Pohjola, Bogotá and Medellín
Fear, threatening phone calls and body guards are part of the daily life of Colombian trade unionists. Statistics show that the country is the most dangerous in the world for trade union activists.
There are gaping holes on a wooden table, a cupboard and in the floor. The picture of a dead trade union activist from those bullets is hung on the wall. Hugo Zapata was killed when the Antioquia regional office of the Colombian Central Trade Union (CUT) was invaded in 1994.
- We were saved by three minutes. We had just left when our building was invaded and our colleague killed. We almost ran into the killers in the lift, says Regional director Carlos Julio Diaz Lotero.
Many of such stories abound. Since the formation of CUT in 1986, 2720 trade union activists have lost their lives in Colombia. It means that someone is killed every third day. Disappearings, kidnappings, tortures and unlawful arrests are also reported continuously.
Sixty per cent of trade unionists killed in the world are killed in Colombia. The trade unions blame the killings on right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing rebels but also on the state such as the army and police. The question is power struggle, says José Luciano Sanín Vásquez, a lawyer and director of Colombia’s national labour college, Escuela Nacional Sindical (ENS). The situation is complicated by decades of civil war.
- The mafia in control of the economy and politics are protecting their interests. Right-wing paramilitary groups are destroying the trade unions. The left-wing rebels justify the killings claiming trade unions supposedly back the interests of paramilitary groups, says Sanin Vásquez.
The state on its part marginalises the trade union movement. The government is mainly responsible because it allows the crimes of the paramilitary and the rebels. Sometimes the state and corporations hire paramilitary to root out trade unions.
Those responsible for the shootings at the CUT regional office have never been caught. All together over 90 per cent of the cases have gone unpunished. Several are recorded officially as accidents and not as political violence.
Díaz Lotero believes the shootings at the office carried the signature of the army.
- The way it was carried out points to the army. The regional security forces were sidelined and the weapons were technologically advanced, the chairman explains.
Marginalised in the system
The Colombian trade union is small and fragmented but it is national and vocal. It is at the forefront of opposition to the economic policy of the right-wing government when it comes to politics such as privatisation and free trade agreements.
In spite of its vigour it is struggling at the margins of society, Sanin Vásquez laments. He considers the political climate as outrightly hostile to it.
- Historically the trade union has not been considered a political actor as in Europe. The reputation is negative. If a company goes bankrupt, it is usual to blame it on the trade union. A worker has to hide his membership of a union in order that he is not fired, he explains.
- In other parts of Latin America the trade union occupies a more legitimate position. The neoliberal Colombian government is charting a different course, stifling democracy.
A single case of corruption which the media has overplayed gnaws at the reputation of trade unions. In the minds of many Colombians, trade union leaders are selfish politicians and sometimes even allies of the rebels.
Trade unions drag the political and economic elite and the media over the coals for painting them black. Ministry for social protection they have renamed ministry for “business protection”, or “ministry of social unprotection”. The economic model, they charge, favours businesses and banks.
- The government blames the economic downturn on the trade unions who demand workers’ rights. It controls those who are supposed to control it, Diaz Lotero says.
- The business culture is undemocratic and totalitarian. Paramilitary groups supervise in the background. Trade unions are born in the middle of the night under candle lights and in secret.
The law obstructs unionizing.
Trade unions are angry that Colombia has ratified the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) agreements on labour protection but they are not put into effect by changing the legislation.
The legislation favours individual workplace unions who have negligible negotiating power. However, only a worker who has an employment contract can organize trade unions. The majority are without jobs. Only five per cent of Colombia’s 19 million workers are unionized while the corresponding figure for Finland is 70 per cent. Violence makes the operation of trade unions unattractive.
Ninety-nine per cent of workers are without condition of work agreement and 70 per cent are without any labour protection whatsoever. Nearly half earn below the minimum wage of 499 000 pesos (170 euro a month). The rights to negotiate and go on strike are limited.
- The laws are designed to make the operations of trade unions difficult not ease them. The reality is nearly impossible to change. What follows is a cycle of destruction which increases poverty and inequality, says Sanín Vásquez.
SASK supports and organising and advocacy work in Colombia. One of the partners is the trade union school ENS which trains trade union activists, provides information to students on labour rights at work, investigates injustices at workplaces and maintains a database of statistics.
- The worst is that a majority of workers do not even know their rights. They work oppressed and subdued.
The threat of violence goes alongside
Civilian-clothed security officers are guarding the hallway of a building in the city of Medellín. The office of the regional branch of CUT is located behind bullet-proof doors and windows on the 14th floor. A policeman opens the door of the lift. When the Diaz Lotero leaves his office he is accompanied by bodyguards of the Colombian secret service. The police guard his house round the clock.
Death threats are usual. Once a caller said he knows where the children of the trade union leader attend school. At another time he only hears the sound of gunfire.
- The most difficult is when the family is threatened. It is the most shocking. In that respect it is easier to be single, says Diaz Lotero, who has been regional head of CUT for six years.
- Death threat, however, doesn’t always lead to actual killing. Rather, the goal is to create an atmosphere of fear. Besides that it gives an opportunity to react. One can decide whether to run for shelter or what to do. It is a more serious situation when there is no threat.
Those who issue the threats try to kill their target psychologically, reflects Norbey Alvarez Ríos, president of a Medellín industry union (EVM). Last year he was pressured to quit his job. Alvarez reported the death threat calls to the police and they provided him with added security.
- I began to think, are labour rights more important than the security of children? I cannot abandon those who chose me in the cold either. Social justice is my conviction, says the father of two young children.
In Colombia trade union violence is most widespread in precisely the industrial region of Antioquia. Nearly half of the killings take place there because the trade union movement has more of a foothold there than normal.
Diaz Lotero describes the 1990s as the darkest. During that time workers of CUT were flooded with threat telephone calls and letters every week. Over the years several colleagues have been murdered and disappeared without trace. Many have fled the country though many have continued the struggle persistently.
- The trade union would not have existed if all had fled. We have to struggle for democracy. There is a lot to be done, says Diaz Lotero.
- Of course we place emphasis on security. I am very cautious. I have no weak spots. I live a decent a life, I do not go out in the evenings, I do not drink and I have no lovers.
Colombia's civil war
