"Days of Action" Set for Workers' Rights in the Americas
Thursday, April 12, 2012
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
In 1996 a group of
armed
thugs showed up at the Coca-Cola bottling
plant in Carepa, Colombia,
where influential labor leader Isidro Segundo
Gil worked. They shot Gil
ten times, killing him, and
then made
sure his union was dead as well, telling plant
workers they had three choices: resign from the
union, leave Carepa,
or be
killed.
School of the Americas
Watch – a group working to
stop the
U.S. from
training union-busting paramilitary groups in
Latin
America through the “School of the
Americas” (now known as the “Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation”) – will hold a week of
action in DC
April 14-17. Since 1990, more than 2,000
unionists have been killed in
Colombia.
SOAW’s April Days of Action, featuring a
noon-time rally at the
Capitol on April 16, are an
opportunity for local labor to “stand in
solidarity
with
workers
in Latin America defending – with
their lives – their right to organize,”
says Metro Council
President
Jos
Williams.
Click here to watch a video
about the School
of the Americas and the struggles of Columbian
unionists (warning: video is graphic). - report by
SOAW’s Nick Alexandrov; screenshot from video
of Colombian unionist Joaquin Romero
Mejia