Global Investment Watch

As noted in a previous post, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe will be visiting Washington DC next week for a media and Congressional blitz in a last ditch effort to gain approval of the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. It is unclear if he will succeed in his efforts. However, I believe that it is useful for readers of this blog to learn about some of the facts and myths associated with this important debate.

In April of this year, US Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP) released a paper entitled “Violence Against Colombia Trade Unionists and Impunity: How Much progress Has There Been Under Uribe?” This paper refutes the two main claims made by the proponents in Colombia and in the U.S. and raises several important points regarding the impact that this agreement will have if it is passed.

First, let’s focus on the claims made by the pro-FTA forces:

CLAIM: Violence Against Trade Unionists Is Down

FACT: Since Uribe took office, more trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia than in the rest of the world combined.

ANALYSIS: Killings of trade unionists are down substantially from 2005 to 2007. Killings continue, hovering at around 33 murders in August of 2008. Compared to the more than 300 killings in 2005, this is a sharp decline. However, the fact remains that trade unionists continue to be killed in droves by any measure.

While the motives of the killers cannot be determined (virtually none of them have been brought to justice), it is impossible to ignore the fact that union officials and activists are being murdered in droves and in direct response to their trade union activities.

These killings, along with threats and torture speak volumes about the climate of fear inflicted on working people in Colombia – Speak out about wages and working conditions and you will die. A never ending stream of stories come out of Colombia about companies using intimidation and murder as a means of resisting union organizing.

CLAIM: Impunity is Being Addressed

FACT: Under Uribe, progress on impunity has been meager; the government is exaggerating its modest achievements.

ANALYSIS:According to USLEAP, there is an extensive backlog of trade union murders (over 2,200 since 1991). However, there have been only 59 cases for which homicide convictions have been achieved since Uribe took office, an average of less than one per month. For 2007, there were 26 cases of murder for which homicide convictions were achieved.

Of 187 priority cases agreed to by the government and the union movement in 2006, only five cases have convictions that have been completed and closed. In virtually no case has the government convicted the intellectual authors behind those who committed the murders. In the one high-profile case in which the intellectual author was sentenced, the sentencing judge was dismissed. Only 55% of those convicted are in custody, according to the Colombian Attorney General’s office. The rest are at large.

Opponents of the FTA argue that passing the U.S.-Colombia deal would stop the limited progress made so far with respect to diminishing the violence and bringing the perpetrators to justice. For years, the Uribe government shrugged off the level of violence and did little to address impunity until it finally became clear that violence and impunity were indeed serious obstacles to achieving approval of a free trade agreement with the U.S. After a four-year average of less than 10 convictions a year for violence against trade unionists, the Uribe government claimed 36 in 2007, with nine achieved in the last ten days of the year. The incentive of getting an FTA could hardly be clearer.

The experience of Guatemala is instructive. Murders of trade unionists in Guatemala dropped during CAFTA negotiations, averaging one every two years; once CAFTA was implemented, the guns came back out, with a big increase in union-related killings, with at least eight in the last year.[1. USLEAP, April 2008]

The Colombia FTA agreement presents yet another notch in the gun held against the heads of working Americans. The stark examples of murder and intimidation odf Colombian workers that have driven down union membership to almost zero, driving down wages and undermining working conditions. All of these factors contribute to an imbalance in trade where morally and ethically destructive labor conditions create both an unfair advantage to Colombian business and multinational companies doing business in Colombia and create an open pit in which working conditions can fall endlessly in both Colombia and the U.S.