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(5) LABOR: Mining union under the gun again
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BY JANA SILVERMAN
Colombia Week
Two years ago, contract negotiations between Colombia’s main mining
union and the Alabama-based Drummond Company led to the murders of the
union’s president, its vice president and the president’s successor.
Now, as the National Mining and Energy Industry Workers Union
(Sintramienergética) gears up for a new round of talks, its leaders have
found themselves under the gun again.
Sintramienergética officers David Vergara and Seth Cure were driving
September 29 from the Caribbean port of Barranquilla to a union meeting
in Valledupar, capital of the coal-rich northern province of César. The
meeting’s topic was contract bargaining tentatively slated to begin in
February. At a roadblock on the way, a suspected paramilitary unit
“disappeared” them.
The abduction echoed what the union had endured in previous contract
struggles. After a heated negotiation session on March 12, 2001,
Sintramienergética President Valmore Locarno and Vice President Víctor
Orcasita asked Drummond officials for permission to stay overnight at
the company’s César mine to avoid traveling after dark on the area’s
paramilitary-dominated roads. The officials refused.
That evening, paramilitaries hijacked the bus carrying Locarno and
Orcasita. Witnesses reported that some of the assailants were wearing
regular military uniforms and that some spoke of “a score to settle for
the company.” Locarno was shot pointblank in front of other passengers.
Orcasita was pulled off the bus. His body, showing signs of torture,
turned up hours later on the roadside. Six months later, paramilitaries
murdered Gustavo Soler after he replaced Locarno as president.
Sintramienergética executive committee member Francisco Ruiz, a former
worker at the César mine, warns that last month’s kidnappings could be a
prelude. “We think that the negotiations this time will be very
difficult because of all the violence in the region and also because of
labor reforms taking place under [President Alvaro] Uribe’s government,”
Ruiz told Colombia Week on a visit to New York this month.
The kidnappings prompted a flood of letters to Uribe from U.S. groups
such as the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor
Rights Fund, demanding an investigation. These two groups have been
working with Sintramienergética since March 2002, when they filed a
federal suit in Birmingham, accusing Drummond of complicity in the
murders.
As the protest letters poured in, Vergara and Cure turned up unharmed
October 19. But a steady stream of paramilitary death threats continues
to menace Sintramienergética executive committee members. Many of the
threats label the union a guerrilla front group that’s blocking regional
development.
Ruiz himself has been in exile in the United States since enduring more
than a year of internal displacement in Colombia due to an assassination
attempt during the 2001 negotiations. He said Drummond won’t bargain in
good faith or ensure security for union leaders during the upcoming
talks unless pressure from international labor and human rights groups
continues to mount.
“Without this help from the international community,” Ruiz said,
“Drummond will not respect the security of its workers and will
definitely not respect their right to organize, and we will be even
worse off than we were in 2001.”
© 2003 Colombia Week. Jana Silverman (jks95@columbia.edu) is a master’s
candidate in Human Rights at the Columbia University School of
International and Public Affairs and the coordinator and co-founder of
the New York-based Committee for Social Justice in Colombia. Her column
appears biweekly.
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