I'd like to put some order into the comments made by the representative in terms of the following. In Colombia, the violence that is being experienced is not due mainly to inequality. I think in areas where there are the most riches in our country, which is in the mining and the banana sectors, that's where the groups are that are outside the law. If it were true that inequality causes violence in the poorest parts of the country, that's where the guerillas and the paramilitaries would be, and we see it's the contrary. The guerillas and the paramilitaries are where there is wealth.
So it's not true that inequality causes violence. I think on the contrary, the offenders--we can't call them anything else--the guerillas and the paramilitary go where there is wealth. They do not represent the poor in our country. Rather, they are trying to take advantage of the wealth.
With regard to the number of unions and union members, we represent approximately 70 unions, which is approximately 85,000 affiliates among all the groups that support the free trade agreement. It's approximately 10% of the unionism in Colombia. In Colombia there are approximately 800,000 unionized people. However, look at these figures: of the 800,000 unionized people, 500,000 are from the public sector, and the whole public sector has approximately one million workers. This means that 50% of the public sector is unionized, whereas in the private sector, where there are 17 million workers, 300,000 are unionized. Although we are a small group of 85,000, we do believe we represent the majority of workers in our country, who want the free trade agreement.
More than unions, ideologically speaking, we truly represent the majority of workers of our country. As you know, there are many associated labour cooperatives, and they have the great majority of workers. The great majority of workers are not unionized. We work with the national government so that these people will be allowed a union contract by means of which we could represent them.
This is a task that we are carrying out. Conversations have gone pretty far ahead. Although those who are against the free trade agreement are part of the majority, it's also true they're mostly in the public sector, and they don't really care if there's a free trade agreement. The agreement will not affect teachers, will not affect health, will not affect justice. They don't care if there's a free trade agreement. But in the production sector, where we have strong representation, it does affect them, and, as I said previously, it represents approximately 17 million workers.