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| Please Help To Control Globalization by Colombia Support Network Two mining companies, U.S.-based Drummond Coal Company and Swiss-based Glencore International, after years of ignoring the needs of miners and attacking their unions, are now the subject of strikes by aggrieved workers. Mark Rich, who received a pardon from President William Clinton for his criminal actions as a U.S. citizen, is reportedly an owner of Glencore. Recently a former official of Colombia's Administrative Department of Security, or DAS, the functions of which are similar to the F.B.I., testified he saw the president of Drummond's Colombia coal operation pay money to a paramilitary leader to murder union members at Drummond's coal mine in the Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia. Two miners who were union leaders were thereafter murdered by paramilitary forces. Gary Drummond and other Drummond representatives have refused to negotiate with union leaders at the company's mine, even though union membership is legal and the right to bargain long recognized in Colombian law. The miners seek to improve the abysmal working conditions at the mine, which have led to 11 workers dying in mining accidents and over 200 becoming sick from the poor ventilation and generally unhealthful mining environment. They also seek a modest increase in wages and investments in community social services from a company that has had profits in excess of 2.5 billion dollars in the last 4 years (while paying the Colombian government royalties of just $4.00 per ton of coal exported). Glencore, meanwhile, sponsored an assault by the Colombian military in league with illegal paramilitaries upon miners at the company's coal mine in Jagua in Cesar Department in the north of Colombia. These miners were exercising their legitimate right to strike for better working conditions and social investment. The miners' lives are endangered, but the government of President Alvaro Uribe has not moved to protect the workers or their interests, just as it agreed to mining royalty agreements which sell off Colombia's mineral wealth for miniscule payments by foreign companies such as Drummond and Glencore. These developments in the Colombian mining sector demonstrate how damaging the commitment to a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) may be, as the Colombian government ignores its citizens' rights to a safe work environment and practically gives away the country's mineral wealth in return for its leaders' personal wealth and aggrandizement. Please write to your Senators and Representatives in the U.S. Congress and U. S. Ambassador to Colombia William Wood and tell them you disapprove of the actions of Drummond and Glencore and want the U.S. Government to support workers' right to form unions and to go on strike for decent work conditions and reasonable pay. Tell them you do not want our government supporting the activities of Gary Drummond and Mark Rich as they turn a deaf ear to the legitimate complaints of Colombian workers. Ask them to get a commitment from these mining figures to protect their miners from unhealthy conditions before agreeing to any more government support for these companies' activities in Colombia. And tell them that, as long as the so-called FTAA plan does not protect workers' rights, their health, and the environment, you want them to oppose implementation of the FTAA. Action with the United States business community: Please write to the Drummond Company and the other power companies listed below: info@drummondco.com Drummond sells Colombian coal to the Southern Company The Southern Company is like an umbrella company for the following Alabama Power: www.southernco.com/alpower Action with the Swiss company Glencore: Chief Executive Officer Tell him to allow the workers to exercise their right to strike and negotiate, that the Company not use military force to solve its differences with the union and that it agree to improve the basic working conditions of its employees. Action with the United States government: That it request the Colombian state to guarantee the lives and physical integrity of all the workers and allow them to exercise their right to strike as defined in law, the Colombian Constitution and the Conventions of the ILO. That the US Government urge the Colombian Government immediately to withdraw the troops and the armed ³civilians² who are preventing the free development of the strike. Tell them you do not want our government supporting the activities of Gary Drummond and Mark Rich as they turn a deaf ear to the legitimate complaints of Colombian workers. Please contact Mr William Wood US Ambassador to Colombia: The Secrretary Of State Condoleezza Rice Your respective members of Congress The Colombian State to guarantee the lives and physical integrity of all the workers and allow them to exercise their right to strike defined in law, the Colombian Constitution and the Conentions of the ILO. That they immediately withdraw the troops and the armed "civilians" que are preventing the free development of the strike. Action with the Swiss government: That the Swiss government and its embassy in Colombia intervene with the Colombian government to urge it not to harm the striking workers, to withdraw the troops and armed "civilian" personnel and to respect the human rights of the Colombian workers. Ambassador Victor Christen Action with the Colombian government: Please tell them not to use the Colombian military to break up legal actions by strikers, whose right to protest and to seek better working conditions and wages is protected by Colombian law and the Colombian Constitution. And tell them there should be no further collaboration between the Colombian government and paramilitaries to undermine the union and oppose union leaders. President Alvaro Uribe-Velez: Procuraduría General de la Nación Colombia Support Network |