Fundación Manos Muertas was formed to defend the human rights of women workers who suffer from degenerative and progressive diseases caused by working conditions.

Today we report abuses by management at the company Recursos Especiales -a temp agency whose workers are anything but temporary- headed by Elvira Bayuelo, who believes she has the right to violate the privacy of these sick workers and their families by sending physicians to examine them in their homes, as occurred last January 12, 2012. These so-called medical professionals unethically and unscrupulously lend themselves to this abusive company, carrying out orders like puppets to the detriment of the rights and interests of our workers.

These home invasions violate our right to family privacy, which is protected under Article 15 of Colombia's political constitution.

With the purported intent of conducting medical examinations, Elvira Bayuelo, legal representative of Recursos Especiales, arbitrarily invades the homes of some our fellow workers who, shocked and intimidated, have had no choice but to let these “doctors” in.

Bayuelo claims that these examinations are legal and were ordered by the Ministry of Social Protection, when in actual fact the aim of these “house calls” is to manipulate the course of several ongoing court actions against the company, which we accuse precisely of violating a number of fundamental rights, including the rights to health, to a decent life and to a minimum standard of living, as well as the human dignity of these women workers.

With these invasions of the homes of sick members of our organization, most of whom are heads of household, Elvira Bayuelo seeks to pry into their personal, family and private lives, instructing the doctors to ask them about their love lives and sex lives in an effort to find something to use against them.

They make all sorts of malicious comments and insinuations, like: “You say your sick, but you don't seem to have any trouble undressing quickly,” as if the task of undressing were the same as the tasks we have to perform at work in SEATECH INTERNATIONAL, where some of us have been employed as “temporary workers” for as long as 20 years.

These women whose good faith has been abused by the legal representative of Recursos Especiales were reinstated in their jobs at SEATECH after having brought legal actions for wrongful dismissal. As a result of favorable rulings from several Cartagena courts, the workers secured greater work stability.

However, even though these rulings were handed down over a year ago, Recursos Especiales has still not complied.

Elvira Bayuelo might be trying to justify these home invasions by pretending to the courts that her company is carrying out the process of job relocation. But that is a blatant lie. What the company is actually doing is trying to find ways to obstruct the court actions.

Do we need to remind Elvira Bayuelo that the process of work adjustments has to be conducted by the company where the workers are actually employed, that is, SEATECH INTERNATIONAL in this case, as is being done with several workers subcontracted by another employment agency who are in the same situation?

We are calling on all our members to report Recursos Especiales' management and demand a stop to these home invasions that go against the Constitution and the law.