In its continued solidarity effort to assist Costa Rican longshore workers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) filed a petition with the Obama Administration against the government of Costa Rica under the Dominican Republic – Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) for “serious and repeated failures by the government of Costa Rica to effectively enforce its own labor laws.” The ILWU’s petition to the Department of Labor’s Office of Trade and Labor Affairs asks the US government to invoke DR-CAFTA’s Cooperative Labor Consultations Mechanism and require the Costa Rican government to remedy its repeated violations of international and domestic labor law.
The 18-page complaint was filed July 20th on behalf of three unions: the ILWU, and the Costa Rican unions Sindicato de Trabajadores de JAPDEVA (SINTRAJAP) and Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados (ANEP).
A central objective of the Costa Rican government’s port privatization plan is the elimination of the SINTRAJAP longshore union which represents approximately 1,500 workers in the ports of Limón and Moín, the petition claims. The petition charges the Costa Rican government with:
- Removing the democratically elected leadership of SINTRAJAP
- Imposing an employer-run board of union directors on the union.
- Running a government-sponsored media campaign against the union.
- Freezing the union’s bank accounts.
- Militarizing the ports prior to the union takeover and directing police to raid and occupy the union’s business office
“Costa Rica is turning into a country in which police smash in doors and windows, where workers have conducted peaceful meetings, where the government spreads propaganda to interfere in workers’ elections, and where working families’ well-being is placed a distant second to the profits of multinational corporations,” said ILWU International President Robert McEllrath.
A similar port privatization program in the port of Caldera had devastating consequences for the province.The so called “port reform” resulted in the elimination of the longshore union, the laying off all of the 1,100 union members, increased unemployment and poverty throughout the province, resulted in dangerous working conditions on the docks, decreased salaries for workers by 66 percent, decreased revenues for public services and had produced negligible investment in port infrastructure.
The ILWU Coast Longshore Division has been assisting the SINTRAJAP longshore union since shortly after the government replaced the democratically elected leadership of SINTRAJAP in the middle of a two-year term and replaced it with a government-backed group in February. The Coast Longshore
Division has placed full-page advertisements in Costa Rican newspapers to inform Costa Ricans of the government’s abuses, and has sent a delegation to Limón to interview workers, meet with public officials, and document the labor violations. Longshoremen in the US work for many of the same major shipping carriers and stevedoring companies as the ones operating in Costa Rica.
“This is the next step in our solidarity efforts with longshore workers in Costa Rica. We are calling on the Obama Administration to ensure that the rights of these workers are protected as required under Costa Rican law and DR-CAFTA,’ said Coast Committeeman Leal Sundet.
OTLA takes action against Guatemala
In a hopeful sign for the SINTRAJAP workers, the Dept. of Labor (DOL) has requested consultations with the government of Guatemala under DRCAFTA’s labor provisions. Over two years ago, the AFL-CIO and six Guatemalan unions filed a petition with the DOL detailing the systemic failure of the government of Guatemala to enforce its own labor laws or to take reasonable action to prevent violence against trade unionists. The DOL, now under the leadership Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, has taken action on the petition.
Read the entire ILWU petition in Longshore & Shipping News at: http://tiny.cc/whl15