PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meetings with state authorities in Bogota given threats faced by trade union leaders

Published by Brent Patterson on March 14, 2025March 14, 2025

The Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc) has posted on social media:

“Delegation of trade union organizations and human rights defenders of the Valle del Cauca [Cauca Valley], we meet in Bogota with the competent entities in the implementation of prevention and protection actions for human rights defenders and trade union leadership. We emphasized the imminent risk that human rights defenders live in the Colombian southwest, the urgency of respect and public recognition of our work. We urge the State to comply with international and national legal standards for the protection of human rights that lead to overcoming impunity and stigmatization of our exercise.”

“Sintraunicol receives threats from FARC dissidents”

On March 13, the Verifico platform noted: “By means of a pamphlet, signed by the Jaime Martínez Mobile Column of one of the FARC-EP dissidents, the board of directors of the Union of University Workers and Employees of Colombia (Sintraunicol), of the Cali sub-directive, is declared a military target.”

“This armed group, which claims to be present in the mountains of the department of Valle del Cauca, especially in Jamundí, threatens to take their lives, and says that it is not responsible for their properties. In addition, they prohibit them from ‘proselytizing in the region, meetings with the civilian population of rural and urban areas, putting them against the organization.’”

The Verifico article further notes: “Of the four threatened, two have a security scheme and the other two are unprotected, including the president of the union. Méndez says that with this threat, which puts organizational and union work in distress, he must take self-protection measures, since he has not been benefited by the National Protection Unit (UNP) to provide him with the necessary security.”

Sinaltrainal receives death threats

The National Union of Food  Workers (Sinaltrainal) has been on strike against the Swiss transnational corporation Nestlé for more than 300 days in the municipality of Bugalagrande in Valle del Cauca. According to a statement recently shared by the union, it is demanding: “End of harassment and threats: they denounce that the members of the union have received death threats, and demand guarantees for their safety.”

Following a November 2024 visit to Colombia, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) noted: “Our delegation met with members of Sinaltrainal in the town of Bugalagrande.”

CUPE explains: “The union has been in a labour dispute with Nestlé de Colombia S.A. since the company banned union representatives from engaging with workers. In April 2024, union members set up an encampment outside the gates of the Nestlé plant, and they have stood strong despite attempts to dismantle their camp.”

On February 27, 2025, Periferia reported: “More than 300 days ago, the Bugalagrande sub-directive of Sinaltrainal installed a ‘resistance tent’ outside the plant that the multinational Nestlé has in that municipality of Valle del Cauca, where around 1,200 workers work… Today the tent and union members are still there in protest against the company’s refusals to renegotiate the collective agreement that expired on May 31, 2024.”

“Nestle exploits workers”

“According to reports from the National Trade Union School, delivered to the Truth Commission in 2020, 3,240 trade unionists were killed in Colombia between 1971 and 2018. Sinaltrainal counts 39 members who were victims of the homicidal crusade, the first in 1989 and the most recent in 2018.”

That article further notes: “An investigation is still open against five Nestlé executives into the murders committed by paramilitary groups against two Sinaltrainal executives: Luciano Enrique Romero in 2005, and Víctor Eloy Mieles Ospino in 1999; both were declared crimes against humanity.”

Luciano Romero

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has noted: “On 10 September 2005, trade unionist, human rights activist and former Nestlé-Cicolac employee Luciano Romero was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by members of a paramilitary group. His murder came after a number of death threats that arose in the context of a long-standing labor dispute between the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal and the Nestlé factory Cicolac.”

Accompaniment

Peace Brigades International has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

We continue to follow this.