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Striking workers will be treated as terrorists, police say
  	 
Colombia's ultra-rightist president Uribe's move to declare an oil
strike illegal, has sparked worldwide protests. More than a dozen
union leaders have been arrested and police have announced that
anti-terrorism measures will be taken against striking workers at the
country's national oil company, Ecopetrol.
 

03.05.2004 (By Maria Engqvist, ANNCOL) The International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) is calling
on its affiliates to come to the assistance of Colombian oil workers,
members of Uni�n Sindical Obrera (USO), who have been on strike now
for ten days against the country's national oil company, Ecopetrol.

The ICEM has 425 global affiliates and around 20 million members. ICEM
General Secretary Fred Higgs is calling on trade unions across the
globe to write to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to protest not only
government actions that caused the strike, but the Uribe
Administration's response to the strike.

A day after the strike began on 22 April, the government declared the
walkout illegal on the ill-conceived notion that petroleum refining is
an "essential service" of a nation.

"Declaring the strike by members of USO illegal and citing petroleum
refining as an essential service to Colombia contradicts ILO
jurisprudence on what constitutes a nation's essential services,"
wrote ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs to President Uribe.

"Case after case has omitted oil refining from that category."

Higgs also said in the letter the act of making the strike illegal,
"considering Colombia's volatile political circumstances" has brought
"harsh repercussions" to the striking oil workers.

The strike, affecting 5,500 workers, is primarily over the
government's decision to restructure Ecopetrol, which likely will mean
a reduction in workers' benefits. USO is also seeking a new collective
wage agreement through the strike.

Since declaring the strike illegal, the Colombian government has
placed legal sanctions on the officers of USO, arrested 17 strike
leaders from different petrol plants and has threatened military force
to bust the strike. Police have announced that anti-terrorism measures
will be taken against striking workers, and the USO reports a great
many death threats have been made against workers and USO leaders
alike.

The restructuring, announced in June 2003, has seen the government
sign new and extended contracts over exploration and production of oil
fields with private sector operators, most of which are foreign based.
USO contends that such rewritten contracts with relaxed terms will
plunder Colombia's natural resources and eventually will lead to the
privatization of Ecopetrol.

"We know that the national economy, the workers, and Colombian people
in general will be seriously affected," said USO Secretary General
Juan Ramon Rios in a public statement.

USO calls the Ecopetrol dispute the most important strike in Colombia
in over 20 years and is asking oil and petrochemical unions across the
world to monitor exports of refined products to Colombia in the event
the country's reserves dwindle. The union is also asking the global
trade union movement to protest directly to Colombian embassies in
their home countries.

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