LABOR-COLOMBIA: GLOBAL UNION GROUPS PRESS FOR LOCAL ILO OFFICE

(English IPS News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
GENEVA, Sep. 20, 2006 (IPS/GIN) -- International labor
associations have publicly expressed their support for the call by
Colombian trade unions to quickly establish a local office of the
International Labor Organization (ILO) in that civil war-torn South
American country.

Janek Kuczkiewicz, director of human and trade union rights at
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU),
announced that organization's support for the nationwide protests
that unions in Colombia are planning for next Tuesday.

"We are determined to step up the pressure" on the Colombian
government and business to make them live up to the commitment
assumed with the ILO, Kuczkiewicz told IPS by telephone from
Brussels, where the ICFTU is based.

The trade unionist was referring to the tripartite agreement
signed June 1 in Geneva, in which the Colombian government and
workers' and employers' representatives agreed to a permanent ILO
office in Colombia.

The local ILO office will be in charge of technical cooperation
to promote decent work and the basic rights of workers and their
representatives, with a particular emphasis on protecting the lives
of trade unionists, trade union freedom, freedom of association and
expression, collective bargaining and free enterprise for
employers.

Kuczkiewicz pointed out that labor rights continue to be
routinely violated in Colombia. A total of 74 trade unionists were
killed in 2005 alone, he said, although the government put the
number at 25. "But there are always discrepancies between the
government's figures and ours," he added.

"The Situation Regarding Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws,"
a report released Wednesday in Geneva by the Colombian Commission
of Jurists (CCJ), also states that attacks against labor-union
organizations continue.

Between January 2003 and December 2005, 271 labor activists were
killed, an average of 90 a year, CCJ representative Andrs Snchez
Thorin told IPS.

These abuses occur in the context of more than four decades of
armed conflict between leftist guerrillas and the military, who
were later joined by the ultra-right-wing paramilitary militias,
which are in the midst of a controversial partial demobilization.

Added to the mix are the drug cartels sustained by demand from
the United States, the world's largest market for illegal drugs.

But besides the violence against trade unionists, there is
"structural anti-trade unionism" on the part of the Colombian
government and business, which deny the rights to strike and to
collective bargaining while carrying out major restructurings and
downsizing that are apparently only motivated by one goal: to curb
trade union activity, said Kuczkiewicz.

That includes the restructuring carried out by the state itself,
through, for example, privatizing the postal system and
subsequently dismissing more than 1,000 public employees, Freddy
Pulencio, with the Unin Sindical Obrera de la Industria del
Petrleo (USO) -- Colombia's oil workers' union -- told IPS.

Then there is the imminent dismantling of the Social Security
Institute, and the public tender of 20 percent of the shares of the
state-run Ecopetrol oil company and 50 percent of the shares of the
Cartagena refinery, Colombia's second-largest, said Pulencio.

The privatization initiatives are among the causes of the strike
planned for the morning of Sept. 26 and the protest marches to be
held that afternoon in Bogot and other large Colombian cities.

Another reason is the workers' opposition to the free trade
treaty that the Colombian government of right-wing President lvaro
Uribe is negotiating with the United States, said Pulencio.

Free trade treaties of this kind substantially impact
agriculture due to the surge in imports of subsidized farm products
from the United States or the European Union, which local producers
cannot compete with, said the trade unionist.

With respect to intellectual property, the free trade agreement
would extend the patent rights of foreign drug companies by an
additional seven years, thus effectively eliminating generic drugs
from the market and driving up pharmaceutical prices three- or
four-fold, said Pulencio.

Besides their support for next Tuesday's strike and protests in
Colombia, the international trade union associations will press the
ILO Administrative Council, which meets Nov. 2-17 in Geneva, to
speed up the designation of a representative in Colombia, said
Kuczkiewicz.

"We are going to demand urgent compliance with last June's
agreement, the appointment of a representative, and the opening of
an office in Colombia," he said. "It has to be headed by someone
of stature, who is worthy of the confidence of the regional and
international communities."

Kuczkiewicz said an office will have to be established in
Colombia, because the representative will not be able to do all the
work on his or her own.

The ICFTU representative also said the office must dedicate
itself to the decent work program that the ILO defines as
"productive work in which rights are protected, which generates an
adequate income, with adequate social protection."

"That is why we are talking about a team," he underlined.

He noted, however, that Colombian trade unionists have
complained that the Uribe administration has expressed on several
occasions its opposition to the opening of an ILO office -- a
position that is shared by most employers.

Colombian trade unionists argue that the resistance put up by
the government and business runs counter to the tripartite
agreement reached in June.

An office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights already operates in Colombia, to oversee the country's
compliance with international human rights conventions and
recommendations.

Kuczkiewicz said that despite complaints from the international
community that the UNHCHR office's observations "could be more
severe," the office at least provides a measure of international
oversight in Colombia.

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