Colombia not enforcing U.S. trade deal labor standards: unions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Colombia not enforcing U.S. trade deal labor standards: unions
WASHINGTON | By David Lawder


Colombia has failed to enforce worker protections in a free trade agreement with the United States, U.S. and Colombian labor unions said on Monday, raising questions about similar provisions in the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

In a complaint, filed with a division of the U.S. Labor Department, the unions said threats and acts of violence against trade unionists in Colombia were neither properly investigated nor prosecuted.

The AFL-CIO and four Colombian unions said in the complaint that since the U.S.-Colombian trade deal took effect in 2011, some 99 Colombian workers and worker advocates were killed as they tried to exercise their rights. Six workers were kidnapped, and 955 death threats were received, the complaint said.

The unions, including those representing many of Colombia's oil workers and farm workers, also said the Colombian government ignored protections for workers who want to unionize and allowed the rampant use of subcontractors in violation of union contracts.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-colombia-trade-labor-idUSKCN0Y71G8

[redixdoragon]

1. Kind of odd to come complaining to us

Our government hasn't really cared for the plight of labor unions or their workers for some time now, or they'd be speaking up about the Verizon strike.

Heck if they don't like that air traffic controllers are striking the military will replace them.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Someone is trying to get it through whatever head is still functioning that you don't make treaties

with countries to benefit their oligarchies while they continue to abuse the working class.

It has been pointed out that people also don't want the TPP, and the whole world has hated CAFTA, and NAFTA for years, including so many lives which have been destroyed, families bankrupted, and people left without any means of support.

How hard is that to understand?

[polly7]

3. Not hard at all, unless it's purposeful.

Good information, Judi-Lynn.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Hard to imagine anyone claiming to be a Democrat would disrespect unions and what they have done

to bring some measure of help to the workers of this country who have been murdered, tortured, children worked hard in factories, in fields, old people forced to work until they dropped, and that's without even mentioning the millions of people who were forced to work under hellish conditions, stolen from their home land, their families, their way of life, their language, every familiar face, every tree, rock, stream, hill forever, and under threat of total violence work for NOTHING for the rest of their lives under the scalding hatred of pasty faced greedy pukes in the U.S.

I'm sure some of those people believed they would have been luckier if they, too, had drowned in ships coming across the Atlantic, just like so many other people did.

Just what the right-wing idiot monsters love: a nation full of desperately poor, suffering people who will do anything you require if you will only give them or their families a crumb of bread, a drink of water, a place to rest before getting back in the traces again.

What has kept the down trodden from going absolutely mad? Probably the understanding of the futility of it all.

It's all going to change, as we know. That's why there are words like evolution, progress, and transcendence, etc. Why would they even exist, unless they are cruel jokes!

It does get disgusting when people infesting a Democratic site dare to condemn people who know the need for fair play, civility, decency, and escape from under the wide ass of oppressors.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Violence Against Trade Unionists Remains Rampant in Colombia

Violence Against Trade Unionists Remains Rampant in Colombia
Published 17 May 2016 (13 hours 36 minutes ago)


Colombian labor unions said the country's authorities have failed to enforce worker protections and revealed that they are being threatened


Colombia has failed to enforce worker protections in a free trade agreement with the United States, U.S. and Colombian labor unions said on Monday.

In a complaint issued by the AFL-CIO along with four Colombian unions, the organized labor groups said threats and acts of violence against trade unionists in Colombia were neither properly investigated nor prosecuted.

For trade union murders, impunity presently stands at 87 percent. For death threats, the most common threat used against Colombian unionists, the rate of impunity comes to a scandalous 99.8 percent, the report noted.

The 69-page document also criticized an initiative proposed by the Obama administration known as the Labor Action Plan (LAP), which was agreed upon in order to enable the passage of the controversial Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Violence-Against-Trade-Unionists-Remains-Rampant-in-Colombia-20160517-0015.html