Teamsters: Uribe, Go Home

(Washington, D.C.) – Rank-and-file Teamsters on Friday protested Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s visit to the United States to promote a job-killing trade deal.

Teamsters, with members of other unions and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, held signs and passed out fliers in front of the National Press Building. Uribe spoke at the National Press Club to a luncheon gathering.

“We join with our brothers and sisters in Colombia in strongly opposing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “It’s a disgrace to even consider an agreement with the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists.”

Colombia is getting even more dangerous. This year, 40 unionists were murdered with impunity, already more than last year’s total of 38.

Earlier this year, the Colombia Free Trade agreement was sidelined when Congress removed it from Fast Track rules.

Uribe came to the U.S., along with a small army of lobbyists, to persuade Congress to pass the trade deal. He didn’t bring any trade unionists or indigenous people—the people who have suffered most under Uribe and will continue to suffer should such a trade deal be approved. 

“Uribe ignores the well-being of the majority of his people, just as George Bush and John McCain ignore theirs,” Hoffa said. “If George Bush and John McCain think trade deals have helped the American economy, then I have a bridge in Alaska I can sell them.”

Last Friday, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., sent a scathing letter to Uribe describing Colombia’s failure to prosecute killers of unionists.

“Our two ally nations should work together to help Colombia improve its labor laws, decrease the ongoing violence, and finally put an end to the impunity enjoyed by those who have perpetrated thousands of anti-labor killings,” Miller wrote. “These challenges have taken on heightened significance this year as the violence in Colombia has escalated over 2007 levels.”

Joining the Teamsters were other members of the Change to Win federation as well as members of unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.