Podcast: Colombia Workers Risk Lives for Better Future

Podcast: Colombia Workers Risk Lives for Better Future

When hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets for weeks last spring to protest the government’s move to give wealthy corporations and rich individuals huge tax breaks while raising taxes on working people, workers and their unions were at the forefront.

Despite the state’s brutal response, in which violence—including illegal detention, torture and the use of lethal weapons—was directed against workers, women and Black and Indigenous communities, the National Strike Committee, a broad coalition of rural workers, the LGBTQ community, environmentalists, women’s organizations and young people, won big victories, says Francisco Maltés.

Maltés, president of the Unitary Workers Center (CUT), the largest union confederation in Colombia, speaks with Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau in a special episode of The Solidarity Center Podcast.

“We were able to do away with the worst tax reform proposal that had ever been seen in Colombia,” says Maltés, describing one of the movement’s gains. Just as important, he says, is that for “the first time in the history of social struggles in Colombia,” unions and their allies can define an agenda and help shape public conversation.

“We are now able to talk about basic income, free tuition, wage subsidies for small and medium businesses. Issues that matter to workers and the average people in Colombia.”

Listen to this and all Solidarity Center episodes here or at iTunesSpotifyAmazonStitcher, Castbox or wherever you subscribe to your podcasts.

Stay Tuned for Season Two!

The Solidarity Center Podcast, “Billions of Us, One Just Future,” highlights conversations with workers (and other smart people) worldwide shaping the workplace for the better.

We will back in a few weeks with Season Two, so be sure to join us for a new episode each Wednesday!

Meantime, listen to our special summer episode with union leader Phyo Sandar Soe who speaks from a safe house in military-controlled Myanmar to share how workers have risked their lives on the frontlines for democracy since the February 1 coup.

Also: Check out the full first season of The Solidarity Center Podcast.

This podcast was made possible by the Ford Foundation and the generous support of the American people through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under Cooperative Agreement No.AID-OAA-L-16-00001 and the opinions expressed herein are those of the participant(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID/USG.

Colombia Workers Set for National Strike April 28

Colombia Workers Set for National Strike April 28

Workers and their unions in Colombia will hold a national strike April 28 to protest a tax hike proposed by President Iván Duque that would increase costs for workers already struggling from lost jobs and income from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Union leaders say the tax plan is misleadingly labeled a “Sustainable Solidarity Law” and instead would raise taxes on fuel and electricity and greatly expand the number of people required to pay additional taxes. The plan also would increase taxes on produce, harming both farmers and consumers.

It is a “tax reform that disguises itself as solidarity, ” says Unitary Workers Center (CUT) President Francisco Maltés.

Unions across Colombia have joined in solidarity to hold the 24-hour strike as part of a Unified National Command (Comando Nacional Unitario) comprised of the CUT; the General Confederation of Workers (CGT); the Workers Confederation of Colombia (CTC) the Education Workers Federation (FECODE); and the Confederations of Pensioned workers (CPC and CDP).

Tax Big Business, Not Working Families

In an 11-point set of demands, unions say the government should establish tax reform based on progressive taxation so those who earn more pay more. Unions also say taxes should be lowered for small and medium businesses while increased for big business, including multinationals. Further, tax evasion should be effectively punished and taxes increased on large land

Colombian workers have been especially hard-hit during the pandemic. Unemployment is at a record 20 percent, with more than 5 million people losing their jobs.

Women in Colombia, as around the world, have been disproportionately affected. Between September 2019 and September 2020, for every man who lost his job, 2.2 women did so, nationally. In smaller cities, for every eight women who lost their jobs, one man lost his job. Many women work in the informal sector, where nearly half of Colombians make their living as market vendors and domestic workers, who are paid low wages and are not covered job protections like health care.

The pandemic compounded workers’ struggles to make a living and support their families.  In 2019, more than 35 percent of Colombians lived in poverty, and the top 10 percent of the country’s earners received 40 percent of the country’s income, 10 times what the bottom 20 percent earned.

Beginning in November 2019, tens of thousands of workers have taken to the streets to protest the Duque government’s repeated attempts to hike prices and reward corporations with tax cuts.

Colombian Workers Connect Clean Energy, Good Jobs

Colombian Workers Connect Clean Energy, Good Jobs

Organizations representing Colombia’s energy and mining sector workers are supporting the country’s transition to cleaner energy while preserving decades-long, hard-fought progress in turning often unsafe and poorly paid jobs into safer, family-sustaining livelihoods.

A joint declaration signed late last year formalizes the commitment of Colombia’s national labor federation Central Unitaria de Trabajadores–CUT and three of its largest mining- and energy-sector unions—Sintracarbón, Sintraelecol and Unión Sindical Obrera (USO)—to an urgent national effort to abandon fossil fuels and adopt new technologies, assuming those policies prioritize:

  • National policies that support full compliance with Paris Agreement goals
  • Government oversite of such policies, including all climate interventions implemented by private mining and energy companies in Colombia
  • The preservation and strengthening of decent work in mining and energy sectors, and of their unions.

“Colombian energy- and mining-sector workers—and the communities they sustain—must participate in every step of the process to ensure workers’ rights to safety and good jobs are supported by the country’s energy transition policies,” says Carlos Guarnizo, Solidarity Center Colombia-based program coordinator.

“Transition to a new energy agenda should be negotiated with us and the rest of society,” to ensure a fair and democratic model of energy production, says the declaration. Energy- and mining-sector workers should be consulted because they have the knowledge and experience to conceive, propose and advance the discussions that will shape the policies on transition to clean energies. Declaration signatories will be working in coalition with one another, as well as with academics, social and environmental justice movements and the international community, to devise such a model.

“On Earth Day, the Solidarity Center stands with Colombian energy- and extractive-sector unions—and all others around the world—as they drive the vision for a fair or just transition to a cleaner, more inclusive, and more equitable economy,” says Sonia Mistry, Solidarity Center global lead on climate change and just transition.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that emissions from fossil fuels are the dominant cause of global warming. Carbon dioxide emissions increased by almost 90 percent from 1970 through 2011, with emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes contributing almost 80 percent of that increase. About 50 percent of Colombia’s electrical-generation capacity is in the hands of privately owned companies.

Colombia Gig Economy Workers Wage Country-Wide Protest for Rights

Colombia Gig Economy Workers Wage Country-Wide Protest for Rights

Delivery employees in Colombia who work for the online platform Rappi joined protests across Latin America today calling for decent wages, job safety and health protections for gig economy workers. Largely migrant workers from Venezuela, they provide essential services delivering food from restaurants and grocery stores to homes, including during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

The Rappi workers began to organize in response to fluctuating pay rates for individual delivery jobs, unexplained fines levied by the company, and the arbitrary barring of workers from the platform to accept jobs. Workers are seeking to unionize to address these issues and collectively defend their labor rights. Some 81 percent say their only source of income is by working for Rappi.

Colombia, gig workers, Rappi, gig economy, worker rights, Solidarity CenterRiding motorcycles and bikes through Bogotá, Medellín, Pereira, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga and Cartagena, the workers culminated their protest at the offices of the Labor Ministry in each city, where they presented a petition to form a union, Union of Platform Workers (UNIDAPP), to secure their fundamental rights on the job.

“These platforms derive their profits from the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world who work without rest or protection. for miserable income,” UNIDAPP said in a statement today. “We are workers without rights who go out to the streets day by day to meet the primary needs of this society.”

Even as workers at Rappi struggle to support themselves, Rappi last month raised more than $300 million in a new round of investment involving international funds, such as T. Rowe Price Associates. Rappi operates in nine countries in Latin America. On Mother’s Day in May, more than 4 million Colombians used the Rappi app, as delivery services benefited from increased demand due to social distancing and lockdown restrictions.

Of the 50,000 Rappi workers, almost none are covered by the nation’s safety and health laws, according to a 2019 study, which found that 63.2 percent had suffered work-related accidents and 67 percent contracted occupational diseases in the past two years. At least three workers at Rappi were killed on the job so far in 2020, two from traffic accidents and one during an attempted robbery.

Like gig workers around the world who struggle with low pay, dangerous working conditions and arbitrary treatment, Rappi employees seek passage of laws protecting their rights on the job and labor contracts to ensure those rights are enforced.

Although several bills are now in the Colombian Parliament to regulate digital platforms and require gig economy corporations to provide some basic workplace protections, UNIDAPP rejects the efforts because they were not drafted with worker input and fall far short of the basic protections they need.

The National Movement of Digital Platform Workers (MNRPD) is filing suit on behalf of the workers, seeking recognition of labor contracts that ensure labor rights. The SC collaborates with the MNRPD and provides technical and legal assistance to reinforce the union organizing effort.

UNIDAPP is an affiliate of the Central Workers’ Union (CUT), which heralded the new union, saying “we have a duty to fight for what we want, full workers’ rights, decent conditions of employment and social protection.”

“Today, a new stage begins for platform workers in the country,” UNIDAPP stated. “We are a strong trade union organization ready to bring our demands to all judicial, legal and administrative bodies, until we have labor rights!”

Colombia: Attempted Assassination of Union Leader

Colombia: Attempted Assassination of Union Leader

A leader of Colombia’s national petroleum union barely escaped with his life following an early-morning assassination attempt Monday.

The attack on Jonathan Urbano Higuera, president of the USO local for Puerto Gaitán, in Meta Department, occurred as he traveled in a vehicle assigned by the National Protection Unit, a government entity that assigns protection to endangered social leaders.

The USO reports that two armed men on motorcycles approached the vehicle and fired. Bullets shattered the rear window, and it was the quick thinking of the driver who saved lives and prevented injuries.

Urbano Higuera and four other USO leaders in Puerto Gaitán all have received harassing phone calls and death threats this year—as have fellow leaders from across Colombia, including in Huila, Magdalena Medio, Putumayo, Tolima and the capital, Bogotá.

In a statement, the union is calling on authorities to full investigate this incident and all threats against union leaders, as well as to guarantee that their ability to exercise union rights be protected. The USO is a Solidarity Center partner. In early February, the Colombian Workers Federation denounced acts of intimidation and overt threats—including a flier distributed by the Black Eagles, a far-right paramilitary group—to union leaders, members of the National Strike Committee and other social leaders.

Meanwhile, Colombian teachers are in the streets today in a “Strike for Our Lives,” to denounce the murders of and threats to social justice, rights activists and community leaders.

Within the first 52 days of this year, 51 Colombian social leaders—including union leaders and worker rights advocates—have been murdered.

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