Fair Trade? Not With Colombia

By Dick Meister

By all accounts, Colombia is one of the world's worst abusers of workers and their unions. Yet President Obama has just signed a Free Trade Agreement with Columbian President Juan Manue Santos.

The agreement, set to go into effect May 15, will align the United States with a nation in which working people have very few of the basic labor rights long granted U.S. workers.

In fact, trying to exercise those rights in Colombia can be fatal. Two-dozen Colombian labor leaders and organizers were killed during the past year.

The U.S.-Colombia trade agreement was supposed to implement an "Action Plan on Labor Rights" that the two nations agreed to in 2011. The plan was designed to "protect internationally recognized labor rights, prevent violence against labor leaders, and prosecute the perpetrators of such violence" in Colombia.

Violence continues, however, as does the anti- union actions of the Colombian government and Colombian employers. Colombian union leaders noted in a joint statement that though the action plan calls for some badly needed reforms, it does not address many others also needed. That includes combating the serious violations of labor and human rights that continue to plague Colombia...