Colombian labor unions said the country’s authorities have failed to enforce worker protections and revealed that they are being threatened.
Colombia has failed to enforce worker protections in a free trade agreement with the United States, U.S. and Colombian labor unions said on Monday.
In a complaint issued by the AFL-CIO along with four Colombian unions, the organized labor groups said threats and acts of violence against trade unionists in Colombia were neither properly investigated nor prosecuted.
For trade union murders, impunity presently stands at 87 percent. For death threats, the most common threat used against Colombian unionists, the rate of impunity comes to a scandalous 99.8 percent, the report noted.
The 69-page document also criticized an initiative proposed by the Obama administration known as the Labor Action Plan (LAP), which was agreed upon in order to enable the passage of the controversial Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
In the LAP’s first five years, some 99 Colombian workers and worker advocates were killed as they tried to exercise their rights. Six workers were kidnapped, and 955 death threats were received, the complaint said.