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Frontline Labor Tour
by Grace Arsenault

          A Frontline Labor Tour to Colombia was held from November 4-15, 2006. The tour consisted of ten delegates from three labor unions. The participating unions were the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). As a delegate from CUPW, my report will focus on the struggles that the Colombian Postal Workers are faced with.

          On Monday November 6th we met with the Syndicato de Trabajadores Postales de Colombia (STPC).Among the presenters were the President, Porfirio Rivas Moreno; General Secretary, Dora Lilia Gomez Mendez; Vice President, Arlez Mogollon Zuniga as well as other members of the executive.

          The STPC is a relatively new union that grew from the hearts of the workers. They used to be members of SINTRAPOSTAL. The president of this union was only playing lip service to the problems that the postal workers faced. For this reason, the workers formed a new union; they united with a shared commitment to continue the struggle.

          In Colombia, the government undertakes privatization in two stages. The first stage is to orchestrate methods that will halt the normal growth of the institution. They stopped technical upgrades and allowed administrative corruption to be practiced until the government was able to declare Adpostal to be dysfunctional and non-profitable. When this happens, stage two begins, meaning the company is liquidated. This is the stage that the postal workers have entered.

          The postal workers have endured many forms of harassment from their employers. Union Activists were separated from the other workers so that the lines of communication could be broken. Porfirio Moreno, the president, was sent to work on an island for two months. What was intended to threaten and divide the workers only served to make them stronger and more united The rank and file workers consider themselves to be a family, each supporting the other. The Women's Committee there is proud of the support they receive from the male workers.

          The female postal workers endured their own form of harassment. Those women with children found their shifts being changed without warning. They were changed from day to night shift without any prior notice. This made childcare and breastfeeding difficult and added to their burden. The supervisors verbally abused the women, ridiculing them in front of the other workers. Some were given extra work to do, while others were put in isolated sections of the plant. Those workers in the Executive of the union received death threats and ominous telephone calls.

          The Unionists gathered under the STPC had many more advantages when they were SINTRAPOSTAL. They had an established infrastructure with a meeting hall and transportation. Although their resources are now smaller, they draw upon their intelligence, courage and commitment to help them in this struggle.

          Within the process of Privatization, there is a law stating that the sale of services can be offered up to the public sector. This is a loophole which simply means that the public has a chance to buy Adpostal if they like. In reality ,this is not feasible given the fact that transnational companies plus the paramilitary have the resources to buy the companies. An example is the case of the electric company. Once it became privatized, the rates were increased to the extent that the Municipalities could not afford power. Thus the electricity has been cut off to entire villages, meaning that they have no refrigeration, etc. This has also happened with water services. This is why privatization is seen as an attack against the basic human rights of the Colombian people. The postal workers warned us to defend our public services. They know that remote villages are without mail delivery at this time, and postal outlets are few and far between.

          Within the new structure of Adpostal, there will be allowances for private sector employees. On August 25th between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m, postal plants in Colombia were shut down in a simultaneous raid by Police and Military forces . In the Bogotá Plant, approximately one hundred workers were on the night shift when two hundred riot police and soldiers arrived. They were accompanied by tanks, and under the authority of a paramilitary leader, all workers were driven from the workplace and the doors were locked. At this time only the Union Executive has a pay, although they have technically been locked out. The total number of locked out workers is 431, and they are being reviewed and placed on a social protection list to determine who gets hired back. Priority will supposedly go to primary earners and those who have medical problems in their families, but in reality many jobs will go to those paramilitaries who have "demobilized".

          What Adpostal has suggested is that they hire back the more senior workers who are ready to retire anyway. This brings in experienced workers who can give an image of normalcy to the operations. The Union is fighting back by staging three weekly protests with support from the Union of Communication Workers. When these two unions march in protest they meet at the Communications building in the heart of downtown Bogota. This ties up traffic and creates great frustration to the city. The STPC has also written a letter to the government asking them to respect the demands of the union. Under Colombian law, once a petition is made to their government, a time limit of fifteen days is given for a decision to be made. Once the decision is reached, a meeting will be called.

          Under the privatized system, isolated villages do not have universal access to postal services. At present, the STPC and the government is working on a by-law to have the postal system dealt with as a whole, so that certain components cannot be contracted out. The STPC also wants to partner with parliamentarians to improve conditions for all. They want the workers to learn new job skills such as technology. The more skills that the workers possess, the more valuable they become. Also, as the workers are taught to send and receive e-mail, the communication and distance barriers are broken down.

          The STPC has determined its strategies and objectives into three categories;

1- Long Term-to maintain a publicly delivered service.
2- Short Term-to stop the massive firing of workers.
3- Immediate-to continue the struggle.

          When privatization was first introduced, the postal workers did not understand the Model they were being presented with. They weren't immediately aware of the long term effects of projects like Free Trade and Plan Colombia. They now realize that the Colombian government has taken all of the peoples beliefs and values and turned them into a commodity to be sold .Now more and more leaders in the unions and congress are aware of what is happening. They aim to create new models so that they can retake their culture and protect basic human needs. The flexibility of labor has wiped out the collective agreement and protective legislation. The present laws go against fundamental demands such as the responsibility of the state to provide postal services to all Colombians. Right now the union sees postal services as "garage postal services". They can be provided by anyone willing to be contracted out. This is considered to be part of the long term plan.

          In the short term and immediate plan, the STPC wants to focus on keeping its status as a legal body. They plan to become a work cooperative if their jobs are eliminated. In this way they can stay united .They also plan to include within their union those workers who have been contracted out and the lower management workers. By doing so they can strengthen and build their union, and it thwarts the plan of the employer to create division among the workers. They realize that the contracted out workers are being exploited as well.

          In Colombia, anyone who exercises their right to protest is painted with the brush of subversion. They are labeled as a terrorist. All of the leaders in the STPC have had studies done on them, but have never been proven to have ties with subversive forces. If you cannot be linked with subversion, then you are brutally attacked by dark forces such as the paramilitary. One support that the postal workers have had is the Union of the Peoples Defenders. This body is led by Maria Ava Vilatte. It is one of the few bodies that have not been infiltrated by the paramilitary. Their job is to monitor human rights in Colombia. There has been much awareness made about the security of trade unionists in their country. Within the files of the National Security Office, a list of trade unionists was discovered. Names with an asterisk beside them were of people who had already been assassinated. At this time Porfirio has been assigned body guards and is awaiting his transport to Canada. The Quebec Labor Federation has sponsored him and his family to come to live in Canada.

          The support that the Colombian postal workers are asking from us is in maintaining their struggle, and to sow a seed that will be long lasting. They want to educate others from around the world so that they too can inherit the struggle. They believe that one day the Governments will change and they must grow from the entrails of the people of Colombia to respond to the needs of the poor. The government group known as the Democratic Poll is concerned for the safety of the trade unionists, and they are helping to strengthen their rank and file organizations. The people aim to define a new Colombia and bring a solution to the struggle to defend public services.

          As they enter the next phase of their fight, they hope that their union will not be liquidated. They need to maintain their legal status as a union, but if the members have no work and no income, that will end. As Canadian counterparts we are invited to continue to build links of solidarity with the Colombian postal workers. Thank you for your support.

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