Why Reward Murderers?

[Omaha Steve]

http://lnn.laborstart.org/more.php?id=942_0_1_0_M

Why Reward Murderers?

Passing an FTA with Colombia Says, “Go Ahead and Kill Union Organizers.”

An article in yesterday’s Washington Post reports that Congress and the Bush administration are nearing agreement on trade deals with Colombia, Peru and Panama. Negotiations between the U.S. Trade Representative and the House Ways and Means Committee have been going on for several months. Since the Democrats took control of Congress last November, approval of the agreements with Colombia and Peru has seemed less likely. This is due in large part to labor and environmental concerns. These are serious concerns, though not the only ones.
Violence against unionists in Colombia is a daily occurrence, with more than 2000 union organizers having been murdered since 1991.

To be a union organizer in Colombia is to risk your life. To struggle for better working conditions is to put your family in danger. Speaking out almost guarantees that you will be silenced.

Yet speak out they do. Refusing to be intimidated, refusing to stay silent in the face of threats and refusing to stop organizing even as their friends and fellow organizers are gunned down, trade unionists in Colombia continue to demand their basic rights.

What are we saying if we allow the approval of an agreement that lacks any meaningful labor provisions with a government that has failed to respond to the violence directed at union organizers?

Call your congressperson today and demand that they
vote “No” on the Colombia FTA!!

Besides labor there are other concerns with the Colombia and Peru FTAs. These agreements will push farmers and indigenous peoples off their land, contribute to higher levels of poverty and unemployment, increase coca production (leading to higher drug availability) and raise levels of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

FULL article at link.

[Vexatious Ape]

1. I hope they don't come to an agreement on this.

It's despicable what goes on to union leaders in Columbia and the rest of Latin America. I'd write my congressmen but he's such a fascist/Talibangelical/rubber stamp Republican it would be a waste of time. Lynn Westmoreland-R-GA.

[angstlessk]

2. Steve, you are a tireless supporter of labor and workers in general

God bless you!