Colombian Flower Workers Fired for Organizing

Remember the brief mention of the US-Colombia Trade Pact during the presidential debates? Contrary to the standard line in the business press, labor conditions in Colombia are far from free. In fact, more trade unionists were killed in the first 8 months of 2008 than in all of 2007.

And our friends at US/LEAP have notified us of new labor violations:

On November 11, Jose Alexander Montenegro, Jose Abel Rincon, Samuel Rico, Juan Bautista Lopez, Milton Paez and Sergio Fabian Bossa were illegally fired from the Mongibello flower plantation just outside of Bogota, Colombia.

All 6 workers had been at the plantation for over 15 years. Fed up with the labor conditions on the plantations, the workers decided to secretly contact one of Colombia’s labor federations, the CUT, to talk about organizing a union. When management at the plantation discovered their plans, the six workers were immediately fired.

Write to the management of the Mongibello plantation and tell them illegal firings are unacceptable!

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