Thank you, Chair.
First of all, let me thank the Canadian Labour Congress for sponsoring my presence here and, of course, the committee for the opportunity to address you with regard to the trade union rights situation in Colombia from an international perspective.
I am the director of the human and trade union rights department at the International Trade Union Confederation, based in Brussels, and a former director of the international department of the Canadian Labour Congress.
The International Trade Union Confederation is an umbrella organization. It is the largest umbrella organization for national trade union centres, representing some 176 million workers across 155 countries and territories.
Our members include organizations like the Canadian Labour Congress and the Confederation of National Trade Unions, the CSN, in Canada, and in Colombia, the three major national centres, the CUT, the CTC, and the CGT. These three Colombian confederations represent, among them, somewhere above one million unionized Colombian working women and men.
My department at the ITUC is responsible for producing an annual survey of trade union violations across the globe. I have a copy in English and a copy in French if anyone is interested.
First of all, we monitor labour legislation as it is in law with regard to freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. We then monitor the implementation of that legislation. Then, of course, we document violations that occur with regard to those pieces of legislation. I'll come back to the survey in a second.
My department is also responsible for playing a role in the International Labour Organization, where we support and coordinate the input of worker representatives in the Committee on the Application of Standards, in particular.
I've had the opportunity to review some of the transcripts of testimony received by this committee to date and will therefore focus my presentation on three issues: one, Colombia's participation in the supervisory mechanisms of the International Labour Organization; two, some of the information on labour rights violations in Colombia; and three, some concerns regarding the impact of a free trade and investment agreement on Colombian workers.
Let me turn to the first point. There are two sides to the ILO's supervisory mechanism, and you've probably heard some references to them. The first mechanism is the Committee on Freedom of Association, a tripartite body with worker, employer, and government representation. It was established in 1951 to monitor rights to freedom of association.
In this committee, the murders of Colombian trade unionists are regularly condemned under case number 1787, which has become that committee's longest-standing case. In 2006 the committee's report on Colombia was more extensive than the combined reports on all other cases put together. Since the year 2000, Colombia has received more high-level ILO missions than has any other country in the world.
Central to the mandate of these missions has been the issue of anti-union violence, though of course they have also examined a number of other issues, including: limitations to the rights to organize and bargain collectively, and the right to strike; the introduction of anti-union legislation; the forced dismantling of trade union structures under the guise of restructuring or privatization; the practice of outsourcing personnel, social security, and health coverage to associated labour cooperatives in which unions cannot operate; and, other similar limitations that impact on the rights of working people.
The second mechanism at the ILO is the Committee on the Application of Standards, where a list of countries are invited to appear every year at the conference, based on a report produced by a committee of legal experts. The experts produce their report on the application of conventions based on information received from a wide variety of sources.
They include the annual reports that the ITUC produces. It includes information they receive from workers in Colombia. It includes information received from employer organizations and governments, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations, like a school in Colombia that does studies on rights in Colombia, or Amnesty International, or a number of well-known non-governmental organizations.
In the report this year--I want to be very up front--the experts noted a number of areas of satisfaction and of particular interest. Of course, careful reading of the entire report--which is available--raises ongoing concerns with regard to the situation of violations against the right to freedom of association or collective bargaining.
It wasn't mentioned in the earlier testimony, but let me quote from a paragraph following the one that was referred to and that is in your record: “The Committee once again expresses deep regret...”. That is in bold letters. These experts are international legal experts; they don't use bold letters very readily. They expressed “deep regret at the murders and acts of violence against trade unionists which have been occurring for many years and those that have occurred in 2009, since the previous examination of the application of” Convention 87.
Now, with the regard to the situation of murders of trade unionists in 2009, according to our monitoring the situation has not in fact improved. In 2009, 47 murders took place. These trade unionists were assassinated for no reason other than that of exercising their right and their responsibility to represent workers. I wish this committee could hear from some of the organizations that represent the workers who have been assassinated. What is worrisome, beyond the numbers, is that the numbers of women victims have increased.
As is illustrated in the ILO's agenda, Colombia's unions are under attack through physical violence and assassination, but also through a series of legal channels, intimidation, and harassment, all within an ongoing culture of systematic exclusion of workers and their organizations and a lack of understanding and disrespect for the fundamental role that trade unions play in a democratic society.
The attacks are systematic, and in most cases, they are directly linked to labour conflicts. The goal is to stop workers from being able to join unions, to bargain collectively, and to gain better conditions for their families, as is their right. The situation severely limits workers from enjoying any results of economic expansion resulting from trade.
When murder and terror are insufficient to stop union organizing, other techniques are used. Certification submissions are arbitrarily denied, mass firings occur, and impunity exists for employers who violate the law. These violations have resulted in a serious decline not only in the numbers of unionized workers in Colombia, but also in the numbers of certified unions as well as the number of workers covered by collective agreements.
Despite reports to the contrary, the fact is that there has been a decline of some 4.7% in the number of unionized workers from 2002 to 2008. Two hundred and fifty-three requests for certification were denied from 2003 to 2008. In fact, what we have is a decline in collective bargaining over the last years, the years of the present government.
So far this year, in 2010, 25 trade unionists have already been murdered as of the end of April. There are lists of names of victims available, along with where they were murdered and the name of the union they belonged to.
Let me refer to the third point now very quickly, Chair. I think I still have a couple of minutes.