= Riots broke out in June.

Protests hit Colombia to

counteract privatization
In the violence torn South
American country of Colombia,
hundreds of thousands of mem-
bers of the Workers’ Central of
Columbia (CTC) hit the streets to
protest against the government's
privatization and sell-out of state
industries and health services. In
mid-June over 600,000 protes-
tors rallied in Bogota against the
privatization of the National
Telecommunications Company.
Workers are concerned about
elimination of their jobs and
pension plan benefits. They were
met with tear gas and rubber
bullets by state police. The gov-
ernment, as part of its restructur-
ing agreement with the
International Monetary Fund, is
selling substantial portions of
the state-owned oil company
Ecopetrol and is aiming toward
privatization of the Social
Security Institute, a state-owned
health care provider. Columbian
President Alvaro Uribe, a close
ally of the interests of multina-
tional corporations, says he
intends to drive down the federal
budget deficit as a percentage of
gross national product and is
taking such measures to do so,
in accordance with the wishes of
the International Monetary Fund.

ICFTU disappointed over

ILO decision on Colombia
The Brussels-based International
Federation of Free Trade Unions
joined the Workers Central of
Colombia (CTC) in late June to
express its deep disappointment
that the Governing Body of the
International Labour
Organization, will not appoint a
Commission of Inquiry into vio-
A. lations of

pn .

rights in
Colombia.
Since 1987, over 3,500 trade
unionists have been murdered in
Colombia, most by right wing
paramilitary death squads. In
two cases only, have murderers
of trade unionists been convict-
ed. The ICFTU says such an
inquiry would shine light on
gross human rights violations in
that country. Dan Cunniah, the
Secretary of the Workers’ Group
at the ILO, said a commission
“would have helped bring out
the truth and made a major con-
tribution to bringing an end to
the anti-union reign of terror in
Colombia.” At the same time
Brother Cunniah says the trade
union movement will hold the
Colombian government to its
pledge to stop the impunity
given to those who have com-
mitted violence and murder.

CTF - IWA Education Project _

FILE PHOTO BY NORMAN GARCIA

= ACTF member at the Inmapal sawmill in Cerro Alto, Arauco province, is

seen offbearing one-inch radiata pine.

Project keys up for organizing phase

IFBWW partners with CTF

and IWA to help out workers
in an expanding industry
This summer
the joint CTF-
IWA Education
project in Chile
will commence to
partner with the
world’s interna-
tional organization for free trade
union’s in the forestry, building and
construction sectors. The Geneva-based
International Federation of Building and
Wood Workers, of which both IWA and
the National Confederation of Forest

Workers of Chile (CIF) are members,
will be joining our trade union organiza-
toins to promote the organization of the
more than 110,000 non-union forest
workers, in a rapidly expanding industry.

“Since late last year we (the CIF and
IWA) have been looking for ways of
working constructively with the IFBWW
and now we have agreed the IWA will
assist the CTF in training on-the-ground
organizers and the IFBWW will assist
the Chileans in helping reach and edu-
cate the non-union workforce in the
Chilean forest sector,” says IWA national
fourth vice president Joe da Costa, the
officer responsible.

Twenty intermediate organizers were

trained at the CTF-IWA Education
Centre in Concepcion the week of June
23. Then the IFBWW, through its office
in Panama, began to work directly with
the CTF. “It’s a program that makes
sense for all of our organizations,” says
Brother da Costa. “The forest industry is
a truly global one and it is important for
trade union organiza-
tion to cooperate and
try to bring up the stan-
dards of workers in the
developing world.

Bill Street, the
IFBWW's Global
HU] Wood and Foresty

Program director, has
Joe da Costa i formed the IWA that
it hopes to work on assisting the organi-
zation of workers in Chile and possibly
expand into other South American
countries, including Peru, Brazil and
Argentina.

The CTF, represents only about 6,500
of the countries forest industry workers,
Founded in 1988 during the waning
years of the military dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet, it’s membership
peaked in the mid-gos at about 10,000.
Collapse of Asian markets, beginning in
1997 and the global depression in wood
prices, saw loss in CIF membership,
although certain exporters grew their
markets to the United States and
European markets.

In all, about 10 per cent of Chile’s
work force is organized into unions —
the vast majority of which have been
made powerless, by the country’s labour
laws and anti-labour climate, to make
change.

“Chile used to have one of the most
progressive labour movement's in Latin
America,” says IWA Local 2693's
Rolando Quintul, the International
Solidarity Fund’s coordinator. “Today it
is a shell of its former self as the 1973
military coup d’etat destroyed unions
and made them illegal for many years.
There is a lot of work to do in Chile.”

CoDev Canada links
with the third world

THEY ARE A SMALL GROUP of pro-
gressively-minded Canadians who have
taken action since the mid-1980s to link
trade unions in B.C. with workers’ orga-
nizations and other disadvantaged sec-
tors of citizens in Latin America.

Currently, the Vancouver-based
CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev), which
largely relies on funding from trade
unions, the Canadian International
Development Agency, and individual
donations, is involved in some 30 pro-
jects. The themes of its project work are
common: labour rights, gender equity
and women’s rights in Central America,
the Caribbean and South America.

Two years ago, two CoDev board
members went to Cali, Colombia, where
they later forged links to assist public sec-
tor workers in their defense against the
privatization of water, telecommunica-
tions and electricity services. Members of
the SINTRAEMCALI union later took
direct action to prevent the sell-off the
state utility. Following an occupation of
the offices of the EMCALI corporation
for 36 days, with widespread community
support, the Colombian government

= Berenice Celeyta received a banner
presented by CoDev’s Jim Gorman.

backed down on its privatization push
and agreed to not prosecute workers.
Sister Barbara Wood, a member of
CUPE Local 1004, points out it was an
amazing feat, given the danger that
Colombian trade unionists face.

Today Colombian president Alvaro
Uribe, who intends to liquidate EMCALI,
and the SINTRAMECALI workers, have
negotiated a temporary truce, with the
union offering some concessions to keep
the public utilities out of private hands.

In April of this year, CUPE in con-
junction with CoDev, invited Sister

Berenice Celeyta, the director of the
union’s human rights department, to its
convention where she addressed dele-
gates, thanking them for their support.
Colombia, Guatemala, EI Salvador,
Nicaragua and Cuba are examples of
countries where CoDey Canada carries
out on-the-ground work. Those activities
may include human and labour rights
education, leadership training, institu-
tional strengthening, basic health educa-
tion, income generation and cultural
exchanges between students. It has
developed curricular resources for high
school kids, including materials on child
labour, corporate globalization, natural
disasters and climate change, social
change and global issues in Canada and
Latin America and peace vs. conflict.
CoDev develops long-term partner-
ship models, recognizing that its com-
mitment to strengthening civil societies
require year after year of sustained activ-
ities. In 1996, it successfully introduced
fair trade with Mexican and Nicaraguan
coffee producers through the Café Etico
program — one which promotes higher
prices for organic and shade grown pro-
duction and community development.
To find how how you can support
and/or join CoDev visit www.codev.org

12 T THE ALLIED WORKER AUGUST 2003