The flower production industry in Colombia is a stronghold of antiunion employers, who also promote the establishment of phony cooperatives and pro-management unions. At the company CI Bochica, a subcommittee of the National Union of Agroindustry Workers (SINTRAINAGRO) was formed and immediately dismantled. Guillermo Rivera, president of SINTRAINAGRO, spoke with Sirel and announced that the first steps are under way to launch an international campaign to raise awareness on this situation.

-Could you give us some background on the current situation at the CI Bochica flower production company?

-We have been informing for some time now that a SINTRAINAGRO subcommittee had been formed at this company and that several workers had joined the union. As a result of pressure from management and the bribes it handed out, this subcommittee did not obtain the approval of the Ministry of Social Protection (MPS), and the company took advantage of this situation to fire all the members of the subcommittee and, immediately after that, to lay off every worker who had joined the union. Negotiations over the List of Demands presented by the union were effectively paralyzed. Following a report filed with the MPS, the company attended a negotiation with representatives of the workers. It continued in this way for 20 days without accepting any of the proposals presented, among which the main demand was the reinstatement of the laid-off workers. Last week marked the end of the 20-day term established by law for the parties to come to a direct solution, with no real results attained, as Bochica refuses to rehire any of the workers and claims that it is unable to adjust salaries under the Collective Agreements.

-What comes next, after this dead end?

-Now, as we have no one left inside the company, it’s impossible to call a strike, so we must move to a stage that involves the tripartite Arbitration Board. This puts workers in an unfavorable position, as the strategy that is typically applied by companies in this situation is to take advantage of the six-month term that the law establishes to appoint representatives to the Board. When the six months are almost up, the companies appoint representatives that resign the day before the negotiations are set to begin, thus gaining another six months to appoint new representatives. A company can pull this stunt several times with the aim of wearing down the union.

-What will SINTRAINAGRO’s reaction to this intolerance be?

-We are coordinating with the IUF to launch an international campaign to denounce the situation, not only against Bochica, but also against all flower producers in general, as they all behave in the same manner. We want to campaign strongly in the countries where these companies export their products to, basically the Unites States and Europe. Consumers must become aware of the situation that affects those who work day in and day out to produce the flowers exported by Colombia, how they are persecuted and have no guarantees for the enjoyment of their union rights. We’ve reported this situation to the ILO, since the Colombian government is going around the world boasting about the union freedom that exists in this country, when the facts tell an entirely different story.

-How many people does the flower industry employ?

-There are some 200 thousand people working in this industry, of which approximately 70 percent are women. Bochica employs 400 workers.

-Representatives of the US Congress have traveled to Colombia in the framework of the discussions towards the approval of a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Have they been able to witness this persecution?

-The association ASOCOLFLORES, which gathers local companies from the flower industry, organized a “guided visit” of their facilities for these representatives, and prepared meetings with workers who are members of unions orchestrated by management. Management uses these unions by getting them to say that there are no violations of labor rights in their companies. These are outright lies, because these companies don’t even pay their social security contributions. That is why we want to be able to send our own committees to Europe and the United States, to explain the actual conditions of production of the flowers consumers buy there. We have videos and all kinds of evidence that show the conditions suffered by the workers of Colombia’s flower industry. Workers wear no protective or safety gear whatsoever, even though they handle great volumes of agrochemicals. There are workers who have become sterile, and many have chronic skin conditions, and we have reported these problems over and over again, without having ever received an answer.

-The government’s lack of action in this sense is absolute…

-Through the MPS, the government is an accomplice of all these abuses and violations of the workers’ human and union rights, as it benefits and protects the companies. This is why we need to pressure strongly through an international campaign to let the world know what is really happening in this industry.