America, What Happened?: Colombian Trade Deal Flies Under Radar

Since unions and others last year defeated the administration's push to create a so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the White House has proposed free trade agreements with individual countries including Colombia, reported IUE-CWA Local 81201 President Jeff Crosby of Lynn, Mass., after a recent visit as part of a labor delegation.

The trip, one of several to Colombia for Crosby, this year included a meeting with Hector Giraldo of Sintroafan, a Colombian public sector union. In 2003, the District 1 Eduardo Diaz Union-To-Union Solidarity Fund brought Giraldo to the United States to speak to locals about the repression faced by trade unionists and to escape death threats in his own country. The labor movement in Colombia has suffered more assassinations — over 3,000 in the last 20 years — than the rest of the union movement throughout the world.

Colombia's legislature has approved a trade deal with the United States, which will not come up for a vote in Congress until some time after this year's congressional elections.

Spotlighting the lack of worker rights protections in all pending trade deals, Crosby stated: "Incredibly, we are being asked to support 'free trade' with a country where 70 union leaders were assassinated last year, and 52 have already been killed this year."

Local 81201 Pres. Jeff Crosby, CWA Local 9415 member Gabe Camillo and others from the U.S. labor movement gather with Colombian unionists during a solidarity visit to that nation. Fifth from left, back row, is Crosby. Seated, center, is Camillo and, right, Sintroafan organizer Hector Giraldo. The Colombian public sector organizer's efforts have been funded in part by the CWA District 1 Eduardo Diaz Union-To-Union Solidarity Fund. Also attending but not shown is IUE-CWA member Laura Gordon, president of the Western North Carolina Central Labor Council.