Four of Colombia’s sugarcane unions united at a press conference last month to denounce abuses against workers in the sugar industry. Sintrainagro, Sintracatorce, Sintracañazucol and Sinaltrainal met for the first time in years to sign a resolution which set forth common concerns faced by labour activists in the sugar sector and agreed to a set of recommendations and actions for the future.
The document made condemnations of “violence and impunity against union leaders” such as the assassination of Sintrainagro leader Carlos Pérez Muñóz which took place in January of this year. Muñóz’s death has been given as proof that unionist in Colombia are still under considerable risk from targeted violence. Despite a decrease in assassinations of unionists in recent years, Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. The resolution also condemned continued threats against leaders and the failure of the National Protections Union to provide guarantees for their organizations.
One of the central themes of the conference was third party contracting, a practice that has been common in Colombia whereby companies give contracts through intermediary companies in order to flout their responsibility to provide workers with legally mandated benefits. For example, sugar companies have adopted new forms of third party contracting through Simplified Stock Companies (SAS), ignoring or redefining what constitutes “permanent essential work related to production,” and by forming in-house “yellow” unions.
Companies have found other ways around direct contracts such as by the formation of so-called “worker cooperatives”; a misnomer in which workers are said to be autonomous but in actuality end up worse off in terms of salary, benefits and conditions. Sinaltrainal leader Oscar Bedoya said:
“Law 50 led to the formation of worker cooperatives, associated worker’s cooperatives. Large unions really suffered for that and workers went from having direct contracts with the companies to being part of these worker cooperatives and remained in this condition of being indirectly contracted.”
He explained how this led to the loss of benefits such as healthcare and pensions, adding: “companies aren’t taking any sort of responsibility for the health of their workers or any sort of role in their healthcare system.” Companies he said, have become increasingly adept at abusing their position. He said that they create new companies “at click of a button” but that these weren’t real company in the sense of taking responsibility for workers.
Other concerns faced by workers include salaries and retaliatory firings. According to Sintracañazucol leader Yermi Micolta, salaries in the sector are down 50% because of the way that cane cutters are paid. He added: “We also work on Sundays and holidays and we’re denied our right to overtime.” Omar Cedano of Sintracatorce pointed to some examples of unjust firings. He said that the Providencia company fired nine workers just for attending a union meeting and that the Manuelita company fired 19 members of his union in what he says was a deliberate effort to weaken organizing efforts.
Cedano said:
“In spite of all of this, this union still has been growing, we’ve been strengthening our efforts, and we the workers need it. We’ve been facing a lot of challenges but we’ve always been struggling to protect our work and our livelihoods and our rights as workers. But every day the situation gets more difficult, there’s a lot of unemployment and companies have closed their doors to workers.”
Another problem that he discussed in his speech to the gathering was mechanization, which has been a growing source of layoffs for workers in the sugar sector. “Workers that leave, retire or are forced to quit, those positions aren’t filled again, they’re filled with machines,” he added.
The effects of the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement was also a prominent issue. The controversial free trade agreement was made law in October 2011, shortly before President Obama faced a re-election battle. In an effort to appease critics of the agreement within the United States Congress and in the labor movements of both countries, a document was signed that came to be known as the Labor Action Plan (LAP) which purported to commit the Colombian government to labor protection, ending impunity and improving worker rights. The Labor Action Plan also established a Ministry of Labor and led to the appointment of labor inspectors to monitor labor practices.
According to the union leaders, however, the prevalence of threats and targeted violence, indirect contracting and poor working conditions have not improved and in some senses worsened. Though some companies have been fined for violating the plan, the fines have yet to be paid and companies still violate labor rights with apparent impunity. Sintrainagro leader Mauricio Ramos said:
“Even though indirect contracts were banned companies will just flat out say to administrative labor that they’re not going to pay the fines and they can’t make them. And the government let’s that happen.”
Cedano also said:
“We’ve had a very clear position on the Labor Action Plan and a really clear position on the compliance of that agreement. Even though the government did create a Ministry of Labor a group which was supposed to be monitoring and going after third party contracting in Colombia, which is an ongoing problem in Colombia, this hasn’t really been enforced. None of the labor inspectors who have been nominated have even come to investigate in our sector. So these protections don’t exist for us as workers and so in this sense the plan is not being complied with.”
Besides Providencia and Manuelita, two of the other big labour rights offenders in the region are the San Carlos and La Cabaña sugar mills, both headquartered in Cali. Sintracatarce had mass firings of its members from the San Carlos company this year, with over 300 workers losing their job because of their union affiliation. This retaliatory firing is illegal in most developed countries and should theoretically not take place in Colombia under the terms of the Labor Action Plan. La Cabaña was singled out for its failures relating to contracts. The resolution states: “La Cabaña boldly refused to formalize contracts for cane cutters, rehire fired workers, negotiate workers’ list of demands or recognize cane cutters’ organization.”
Sintrainagro leader Mauricio Ramos pointed to the lack of response from the labour minister for the actions of sugar companies and also singled out La Cabaña for criticism. He said:
“In the face of mass firings, like in the case of La Cabaña, mass firings of unionists the Labor Minister [Rafael] Pardo hasn’t done anything. He’s just accepted that. He still allows sugarcane companies to issue any kind of contracts that it wants.”
One of the most worrying things brought up by the speakers is the continued impunity for violence committed against unionists despite the alleged protections provided by the LAP. Ramos recounted the death of his fellow Sintrainagro member:
“Juan Carlos Pérez Muñoz was a union member with La Cabana when he got killed, the government hasn’t done anything there’s been no prosecution and no suspects named. When Juan Carlos was trying to organize with the workers that had been fired from La Cabana which was a hub of about 20 people which was why he was targeted. It’s so bad that we’ll turn in reports to the local investigator, to the attorney’s office, and they’ll put way more energy into investigating the person who made the complaint than the actual case because it’s so stigmatized to be a labor leader or a human rights leader and to be speaking out.”
This continued violence after the free trade agreement and LAP were signed seems to have confirmed the worst fears of those who resisted the agreement in the first place.
The resolution committed the four unions to seven recommendations for action including actual enforcement of sanctions for companies that engage in indirect contracting, pushing for other job functions to be included in the definition of essential labor, ensuring the rights to free association and union membership, promoting Senate Bill 097-098 (sponsored by Alexander Lopez Maya) which would outlaw third-party contracting, and an effort to open a dialogue between sugarcane unions and the Sugarcane Association to discuss compliance with the Labor Action Plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwdMOV0Iojc&feature=youtu.be