In Colombia, the Solidarity Center brings attention to the immense challenges that Colombian workers face from anti-union forces—harassment, death threats, and assassinations—and the courage with which they face these struggles.

Sugar cane cutters work long hours for low pay under precarious conditions.

Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for union activists. In the last 20 years, 4,000 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered. Each year, more union activists are killed in Colombia than in the rest of the world combined. But an atmosphere of impunity has ensured that only a tiny number of these murders have been prosecuted and the criminals brought to justice.

In addition to the daily threat of violence and assassination, Colombian workers are faced with the same challenges as workers worldwide: degradation of work and worker protections, anti-union privatization practices, and “cooperative” arrangements that exclude millions of workers from labor law and collective bargaining. Only 4 million of Colombia’s 18 million workers are estimated to have formal labor contracts, and more than half of those are temporary.

Although the government has made great efforts to reduce the power of armed organizations, modernize the economy, and attract foreign investment, it has maintained an unresponsive policy toward labor unions. Colombian authorities have been unable or unwilling to apply laws that protect basic worker rights such as the right to form and join unions. Many employers characterize labor disputes as tantamount to seditious activity.

Colombia Exchange Program Builds Skills, Solidarity. "To our embarrassment, we Colombians must stand before the international community and say that in our country, the fundamental rights to life, health, work, and education are not respected," a Colombian union leader told a group of U.S. union activists. "Our country continues to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist."

Lack of Respect for Worker Safety Cost Colombian Miner His Life. In a unified response to safety shortfalls that killed an inexperienced and untrained contract worker at Colombia’s second largest coal mine, 9,000 union miners and contract workers staged a four-day strike in March 2009 that shut down production.

U.S. Union Leaders Meet Champions of the Colombian Labor Movement. On a Solidarity Center sponsored exchange visit, Florida State AFL-CIO Vice President Mike Williams learned about Colombian workers’ constant struggle for social and economic justice—and why U.S workers need to hear their story.

Making Colombian Mines Safe. On February 6, a coal mine explosion in Colombia killed four miners, including a 13-year-old child. Four others died of asphyxiation trying to rescue them. Their deaths occurred only three days after another mine explosion killed 32 — Colombia’s worst mining disaster in 30 years.

Related Solidarity Center Publications

Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in Colombia (2006) focuses on the appalling conditions for workers in Colombia, the country with the highest assassination rate of trade unionists in the world. It also examines gender discrimination, child labor abuses, and how labor law, hiring practices, and failing labor authorities seriously undermine workers' attempts to organize.

Learn More

ITUC 2009 Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights in Colombia (English / Spanish).