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Andean Region Unions Review
Violence in the Five Nations

                 By Ronald J. Morgan

QUITO,ECUADOR --- Murder, arrest and torture
are an all too familiar part of the daily
working conditions faced by Latin American unionists.
     The dramatic assasination attempt against Wilson
Borja the leader of Colombia's State Workers Union on
Dec. 15 was just the latest in violence against union
members in the turbulent region which traditionally
leads the world in union violence.
     Four men with assault rifles attacked Borja as he
left for work in Bogata, shooting him in the shoulder
and leg. Death literally grazed the top of his head as
a bullet creased his scalp. Borja's bodyguard and a
woman street vendor were killed.
      In some ways, union officials feel the violence
is almost officially tolerated.
      "It's not enough that we have bodyguards
supplied to protect us," says Aprecides Alviz
Fernandez,president of the Confederation of Colombian
Workers known as the CTC. "The government needs to
carry out a serious policy to identify and erradicate
the sectors where this violence originates.
Fundamentally, we need serious investigations which
eliminate the impunity. Today in Colombia impunity is
over 95%."
       So far this year, 102 union members have been
killed in Colombia, Alviz Fernandez said. "The
situation of violence is getting more and more
critical. It's a consequence of the lack of advance in
the peace process, in addition the military aspects of
Plan Colombia are undoubtedly racheting up the
violence."
       Members of the Human Rights Committe of the
International Federation of Free Trade Unions, ICFTU,
gathered
recently in Quito to discuss union conditions in the
five-nation Andean area.
       In addition to violence, union activists face
government-sponsored labor reforms which restrict
their activities and often find themselves victims of
repression when they oppose government economic
adjustment programs. International labor agreeements
signed by area governemnts are often violated.
        "The issue of respect for labor rights has
been placed on a lower plane while business capital
interests are given privelaged treatment," complains
Jaime Arciniega head of the Ecuador branch of the
ICFTU.
      While Arciniega and other Ecuadoran union
members were
celebrating this week because recent governemt labor
law reforms had been declared unconstitutional, the
victory was not considered enough to roll back the
onslaught against labor in Ecuador.
      The number of collective bargaining agreements
and the number of
persons enrolled in social security have been in
constant decline over the past ten years.
     "The minimun wage of $4 a month is not enough to
pay 50% of the taxes," complains Bruno Apaza, Vice
President of the ICFTU in Ecuador. "The retirement pay
right now is $2 a month for persons with 25 years of
service."
     Ecuador has been engulfed by unrest for the past
three years largely because of disputes over economic
austerity measures which followed near collapse of the
banking system and default on part of Ecuador's
foreign debt. Earlier this year it switched to the use
of the U.S dollar in an effort to stem hyper
inflation.
      The ICFTU was sharply critical of the
government's insistence on imposing International
Monetery Fund mandated reforms.
    "Despite the fact that two presidents of the
republic were virtually forced
out of office owing to popular protest at the economic
adjustment measures, Ecuador´s political and economic
establishment insists on continuing with its
neo-liberal measures," the committee report noted.
    In addition, the murder of
Ecuadorean trade unionist Saul Canar Pauta in
December, 1998, remains unsolved, and several
trade union leaders have been jailed and persecuted
for their work, including former ICTFU Ecuador
President Jose Chavez Chavez.
    In Bolivia, unions have suffered government
repression during three years of protests by the
Central Bolivian Central, known as
COB, against government economic policies and
education reforms which have lead to the firing of
105,000 teachers, the ICTFU said.
    The U.S. backed Plan Colombia also drew criticism
from the Brussels-based organization, which monitors
union rights throughout the world.
    Plan Colombia, the group said, "will exacerbate
the armed conflict and give the parties to the
conflict an excuse to step up their action against
civil sectors not involved in the fighting including
trade unionists."
     Strong effects are expected in Bolivia where
the government's program of zero-tolerance against
coke plantings has cost the lives of 20 persons in the
Chapre region.
     "There's no job sources, there's no
business,nothing. There's persecution of leaders,
women and children. The military and police have been
given a privelaged status, says COB Unionist Bruno
Apaza.
      Pervuasive poverty, he fears, may lead to
greater violence.
      "I hope we don't become like Colombia. We
believe in peace. We don't want that type of violence.
But the
economic model has to be softened. The model can't
continue like it is. There are very few rich...If the
wealth is not redistributed, people given more
opportunity, more
participation, there could be violence in the future."
     Meanwhile, Peru following the resignation of
President Alberto Fujimori, is providing conditions
for a recovery of union rights the ICFTU believes.
     Jose Guerrero Flores, secretary for human rights
of the Unified Central Workers,known as FUT said that
the union movement has been at a standstill during the
Fujimori dictatorship as a result of rampant violation
of labor guarantees contained in the Peruvian
constitution and international agreements.
      "Government entities and businesses were managed
by people linked to Peruvian intelligence. This made
union work difficult in the public firms and also in
the private sector. There was also an infiltration of
spies into the union movement"
      The challenge ahead, he said, is to reactivate
union legislation and reincorporate more than 1
million fired workers back into the union movement.
      Venezuela, where unions have traditionally shown
strength and where a left government is in power, is
ironicaly, posing the stiffest challenge to union
freedom, the ICFTU committee noted.
      "Since President Hugo Chavez Frias came to power
in 1998 his goverment
and the political forces that support him have
relentlessly sought to destroy the principal trade
union federations and confederations, particularly the
Venezuelan Workers Confederation, known as CTV," Eddy
Laurijssen, assistant secretary general of the ICFTU
charged.
     Chavez, who accuses the CTV and other Venezuelan
unions of corruption, won a Dec. 3 referendum
calling for reorganization of the nation's union
confederations with 66% of the vote of a sparse 22%
turnout.
     Venezuelan unionists charged the government
victory was undercut by the
lower voter turnout. "Of 11 million eligible voters
only a little more than 300,000 voted for the proposal
while the rest voted against or abstained," said Luis
Salas of the CTV.
     The union charges that the referendum violated
the Venezuelan constitution and international
agreements with the International Labor Organization.
     The referendum-mandated elections of new union
officers are scheduled for
the first half of 2001. Salas said the CTV may seek
international sanctions against the Venezuelan
government for interfering with union autonomy.
      "President Hugo Chavez has been talking about
union corruption for two years. But there has not been
a single union member sent to prison for corruption.
We've challenged him openly to say who they are," he
said.

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