COLOMBIAN UNION LEADER BUILDS
OPPOSITION TO FREE TRADE DEAL

Edgar Paez considers himself fortunate to be able to campaign across the United States this month against the proposed U.S.-Colombia free trade deal. Twenty-two members of his union--assassinated for their activism--weren't so lucky.

Employees of Coca-Cola, Nestle and other multinational corporations, "They were killed because they were fighting for workers to be paid better--and that would have resulted in the companies not making as much profit," he said.

Paez, a leader of Sinaltrainal, the National Food Industry Workers Union in Colombia, spoke in Minneapolis and Rochester, Minn., in late March in programs sponsored by the United Steel Workers, the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition and Witness for Peace. He is touring the country before an upcoming congressional vote on legislation proposed by the anti-worker GOP Bush government implementing the free trade agreement with Colombia.

Under the special “fast track” rules for such pacts, lawmakers do not vote on the free trade deal, but on the law to put it into effect--and they can’t amend it. Both houses of Congress must pass that law, which is silent about workers’ rights in Colombia, by majority votes. Bush plans to send the law and the pact to Congress by March 31.

Under pressure from congressional Democrats, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe inserted some pro-labor provisions into the pact's text. But unions and lawmakers say they're not good enough to overcome Colombia's notorious record of more than 2,000 unionists murdered by Right Wing paramilitaries--some paid off by U.S. multinationals--over the last 15 years, or Uribe's lack of prosecution of perpetrators.

Opponents, including the U.S. labor movement and all three Colombian labor federations, said the agreement also would continue the failed policies of NAFT A that have led to massive job loss and lower wages throughout the Americas. Labor has launched an energetic and mass campaign to stop the U.S.-Colombia FTA in its tracks.

Since 1991, a total of 2,283 Colombian unionists have been murdered and many more have been subject to violence and death threats, according to the International Labor Organization. Not only workers, but also students, farmers, indigenous communities and many others have been subject to violence, Paez said. The Uribe administration often uses the “war on drugs” as an excuse, but in fact has been heavily implicated in drug trafficking, he said.

"What's happening in Colombia is the worst-case example of what happens when companies are allowed to do whatever they want,' said Tara Widner, the USW staff representative who spoke at the programs with Paez. The Steelworkers have sued a number of multinationals in U.S. courts for their actions in Colombia, she noted. USW is leading labor’s efforts to oppose the U.S.-Colombia free trade deal in Congress.

Paez and Widner, as well as exiled Colombian union activist Gerardo Cajamarca, who also spoke at the programs, emphasized they support trade between countries. But it must include meaningful labor, environmental and human rights protections, they said.

Earlier this month, Colombian workers demonstrated in opposition to the U.S.-Colombia FTA and to demand an end to state-sponsored violence. They also plan a series of tribunals in Bogota in late July to put Chiquita Brands, Drummond, Monsanto and other multinationals "on trial" for violations of human rights. Chiquita is one of the multinationals identified as paying “protection” to the paramilitaries--and paid a multimillion-dollar fine to the U.S., when that was discovered.

"Despite these atrocities, despite these crimes, the Colombian people continue to resist, to dream and to build other alternatives," Paez told the audience in Minneapolis. "We'd like for you to help us create a different Colombia."