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With Aidé Silva, president of UNTRAFLORES
Flower industry workers
brutally beaten
Last Saturday, Sept. 18, the workers of Finca Agrícola
Guacarí were violently cleared away by municipal riot police
as they demonstrated peacefully demanding payment of the
last four months’ wages and benefits.
Finca Agrícola Guacarí is one of the 14 properties where the Nannetti Group grows flowers for wholesale abroad. In the
United States, the group markets its production through
its
Sunburst Farms
company, also known by the name
Sunburst Farms
Floramerica
(formerly
Dole
Fresh
Flowers).
It also exports part of its production to the European
market.
Sirel
spoke with Aidé Silva, president of the Union of
Flower Industry Workers (UNTRAFLORES), who gave an
account of the incident that resulted in several injured
workers. She also called on the international labor movement
to lend its support by telling the world what’s happening in
the flower industry and to flower workers in Colombia.
-What exactly happened last Saturday?
-The police, by order of the company’s management, came down
on the workers of
Finca Agrícola
Guacarí,
who were peacefully demonstrating after having decided on
Sept. 9 to call a permanent work stoppage to demand that the
company pay the back wages it owes them, along with bonuses,
social security contributions for health care and retirement
funds, and family subsidies.
Guacarí has another 14 properties, and it violates workers’
rights in every single one of them. What happened on
Saturday was outrageous. The company called the Municipal
Police, which sent in about 100 riot policemen who came down
on the demonstrators, beating them and spraying tear gas
left and right. Among the demonstrators were pregnant
workers who were seriously hurt.
-What measures has UNTRAFLORES taken against this
aggression?
-We’ve filed reports with the Ministry of Social Protection,
through the Office of the People’s Advocate, and with the
Attorney General’s Office, informing them about what
happened, how the workers were beaten, how they’re denied
their right to unionize, and how flower industry workers are
being repressed.
-Has the company said anything?
-No, Agrícola Guacarí remains determined not to budge in its
intransigent position to our demands.
-And what about the authorities?
-They haven’t
said anything, neither the People’s Advocate nor the
Attorney General’s Office. But we’ve already informed the
different municipalities and the Bogotá authorities. Nobody
has come out to explain to us why the police raided a
private company, when there was no illegal activity going on
and no roads were being blocked.
The demonstration was totally peaceful; no worker resorted
to violence. What this company did was literally brutal.
Which is why I take this opportunity to call on all workers,
to appeal to their solidarity through the IUF, to
make this situation known throughout the world.
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