2008: Bad Trade Agreements Stopped; Violence Up; Big Advance for Flower Workers

USLEAP worked hard in 2008 to defend the rights of workers in Latin America.  The following is a summary of some of the major issues that arose throughout the year.  There is more information about most of these stories elsewhere on the website.

Trade and Worker Rights

Worker rights advocates successfully beat back a huge push by the Bush

Noe Ramirez, General Secretary of SITRABI, Guatemala's largest banana worker union, on stage in front of 20,000 proiesters during the annual vigil to close the School of the Americas, in Columbus Georgia. Jesus Brochero (left), a Colombian mineworker, also attended.

Administration, the Uribe government, and big business, blocking a vote on the long-stalled Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Also stalled was a trade agreement with Panama.

The 2008 elections helped stir opposition to any new trade agreements while supporters of the Colombia agreement had to contend with a reality that worked against them as the number of trade unionists murdered increased over the 2007 level.

USLEAP devoted significant resources to analyzing and reporting the Colombian government's lack of progress on impunity.

USLEAP also focused on exposing the weaknesses of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, releasing an August report analyzing how CAFTA's worker rights protections are so weak that they cannot even effectively address murders, let alone non-violent violations of worker rights, such as the right to organize. Meanwhile, resistance to CAFTA continues to block implementation in Costa Rica.

The impotency of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) worker protections was also underscored when the Mexican and U.S. governments finally scheduled ministerial consultations, for December 2008, on a worker rights compliant that had been filed, with USLEAP support, in 2004. The labor conflicts that were central to the complaint have long since been
crushed.

No Improvement on Violence in Colombia

More Colombian union members were murdered in the first eight months of 2008 than in all of 2007, with a total of 43 killed by early November.

USLEAP documentation and research revealed that there continues to be almost complete impunity for assassinations of union members, where 96.5% of cases are entirely unresolved. In the 3.5% of cases in which there is a conviction, the vast majority of cases do not involve those who ordered the killings, but only the hired thugs who pulled the trigger. USLEAP impunity reports were used by the media, members of Congress, and opponents of current U.S. policy on Colombia which includes more military aid and the proposed free trade agreement.

The Colombian government also cracked down on strikes this year, most notably against the massive judicial and sugar cane strikes this fall. The continuing scandals in the Colombian government caused U.S. military aid to the country to be significantly reduced in 2008, a trend that is expected to continue in 2009.

Flower Workers Welcome Major Advances in 2008

Flower workers in Colombia saw major victories in 2008 when the first two Dole contracts were signed in July. The unions, who had struggled for over four years, now have contracts which include wage increases and paid vacation time, among a host of other benefits. Dole, the largest Colombian flower grower, subsequently announced plans to sell its flower division, creating concern about the future of the contracts. The CUT, Colombia's largest trade union federation, also began to organize in the flower sector in 2008.

USLEAP 2008 support included organization of a religious sign-on letter, a two-week tour with a Dole flower worker Dora Acero, and work with members of Congress to pressure the Colombian government.

Banana Workers:  Violence Strikes

The murder of a trade union leader and rape of another union leader's daughter at a Chiquita supplier in Guatemala generated outrage but no prosecutions. In April, another banana union member was murdered in Guatemala on a Del Monte plantation. The September 2007 murder of Del Monte union leader Marco Tulio Ramirez also remains unresolved. In November, leaders of the Honduran banana unions were held at gunpoint while their headquarters in Lima was ransacked.

Dole remained public enemy number one for the Coordination of Latin American Banana Workers Unions (COLSIBA) and the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF), whose global campaign against the company entered its third year. The campaign, which USLEAP heads in the U.S., accuses Dole of leading the race to the bottom in the industry while hiding behind a smokescreen of alleged corporate responsibility.

No organizing progress was made with the non-union Bonita/Noboa banana company in Ecuador but approval of a new constitution in Ecuador, the world's largest banana exporter, offers some hope for labor law reform, as called for in a pending USLEAP petition to the U.S. Trade Representative. Ecuador's non-union, low-wage banana export sector continues to undermine wages and conditions at unionized plantations elsewhere in Latin America.

An initiative between the leading U.S. Fair Trade group, Transfair USA, and COLSIBA under which union-backed bananas would be sold in the U.S. with the Fair Trade certified label remained stalled in 2008 due to the lack of a certifiable supplier. The initiative seeks to start a "race to the top" that would benefit unionized banana workers. USLEAP continues to accompany the deliberations.

Maquilas:  Another Bad Year for Unions

In Guatemala, the only remaining maquila with a union shut its doors in July. Efforts by USLEAP and others to secure full back pay and severance continue with Choishin, whose unionized sister plant closed in 2007. Workers won collective bargaining agreements in 2002, with USLEAP support.

The anti-sweatshop movement's most important victory in Mexico floundered when thugs, in collusion with local labor authorities, took over the union at Kuk Dong, now known as Mexmode. In January, a union organizing victory in late 2007 was crushed when management opted to close the Vaqueros Navarra plant.

A bright spot was in the Dominican Republic at the TOS Dominicana factory where Hanesbrand signed a contract in August.

Violence Up in Central America

Five more trade union-related murders took place in 2008 in Guatemala, continuing its place as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for a trade unionist.  In 2008, violence also spread in Central America, to Honduras where a top union leader was gunned down in April.   Soon after, the Honduran union movement learned of a death list now circulating in a country that in recent years has been considered relatively peaceful compared to others in Central America.