If Only Colombia Did Have a Heart

In an affront to workers everywhere, the Colombian government is handing out flowers in Washington’s Union Station – on the day after Labor Day, no less.

Flowers are one of Colombia’s biggest exports. Colombia’s flower workers – mostly women, mostly single mothers – earn poverty wages. Pregnant flower workers are often fired. Sometimes pesticides are sprayed on them while they’re working. Should a Colombian flower worker try to organize a union to try to improve her working conditions, she might be fired. Or even killed.

(Read more about the flower workers here)

Colombia’s violence against unions is unlike anything anywhere in the world – but Colombia’s government would prefer that it go unnoticed. Hence the public relations campaign designed to elicit pleasant images of Colombia’s culture, its landscape and its exports. As part of that campaign, giant decorated hearts have been scattered throughout the city, and Juan Valdez will be available for photo ops.

The reason for the timing of the PR campaign is that Colombia President Alvaro Uribe desperately wants a trade deal with the United States. The Bush administration negotiated a pact, but Congress refused to approve it. Lawmakers simply didn’t want to excuse Colombia’s horrific aggression against workers.

Two weeks ago, Gustavo Gomez was shot to death in his front doorway. Why? Because he was a Nestle employee working on a lawful petition drive for the Colombian Food Service Workers Union. The odds are his murder will never be investigated. 

Since 1986, 2,700 union leaders have been assassinated in Colombia. Fewer than 4 percent of their murderers have been convicted, and six in 10 assassinations haven’t even been investigated.

Like other recent trade deals, the Colombia version is modeled after NAFTA. It would destroy family farms in Colombia, the way NAFTA did in Mexico. And, like NAFTA, it would move good jobs to Mexico.

The Teamsters have consistently fought against the trade deal – called the “Colombia Free Trade Agreement” – because it would reward that country’s systematic attacks on workers. It would further Colombia’s anti-labor agenda by protecting the interests of corporate investors at the expense of workers’ rights.

Labor leaders such as my boss, Teamsters President Jim Hoffa, along with human rights activists, consistently speak out about Colombia’s abuses against its own people. Today the Teamsters are demonstrating against the trade deal at Union Station. We will continue to fight these job-killing trade deals.

American workers don’t need another bad trade deal like NAFTA, and they certainly don’t need a trade deal with a country like Colombia.