5 reasons to join a union

1. Better wages and benefits

It’s proven that workers who are trade union members earn more than non-unionized workers. Trade unions use their collective muscle to bargain for better salaries, pensions, holidays, health insurance, sick pay, overtime and more. Trade unions hammer out negotiations with management to get the best possible deal for employees, so you don’t have to.

2. Personal protection

Unions have got your back. Not only can they tell you your rights, they will defend your rights. If your employer treats you unfairly, you can rely on support and expert representation from your union. A trade union rep is a trusted person to turn to when you’re unhappy at work or management is behaving badly. And, as the workplace is transformed by automation and robotics, trade unions are demanding training, lifelong learning and social protection for workers to transition to the new world of work.

3. Equality

Trade unions champion equal rights and equal pay. They fight discrimination against race, gender, sexual orientation and disability. They foster respect and dignity in the workplace. Trade unions promote maternity rights, flexible working and paternity pay, so that caring responsibilities are shared. Today, some of the world’s biggest trade unions are led by women and unions are actively encouraging women and young people to take on leadership roles in union structures. As a trade union rep, you can make your workplace better.

4. Health and safety

Unionized workplaces are safer – fact. That’s because trade unions won’t let workers put their lives at risk to meet production targets or save the company money. The only people with the moral authority to assess the risk, are those who face the risk. And the only way to have a voice is to have a union. With the backing of a union, you can feel confident in saying no to dangerous work without losing your job. Trade unions campaign tirelessly for safer working conditions, and can be thanked for most of the gains in workplace health and safety.

5. Solidarity

Trade unions have an incredible network that spans the world. Global trade unions, like IndustriALL, which counts over 600 trade union affiliates in 140 countries, can use their membership of millions to command the attention of the very biggest corporations. Global unions can raise a serious issue that is getting ignored at the plant or office level, with the top management of a multinational company. Often, senior management is unaware of a problem that’s going on locally, and global unions can help resolve an issue on the ground. When you join a union, you join a global family.

Unions fight for a Just Transition to a cleaner, sustainable future which is economically and socially just and fair for workers and their communities.

ACT labelled "important global initiative" by UK Parliamentary report

Governments around the world are increasingly recognising that ACT is the initiative most likely to deliver living wages to garment workers. The interim report of the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee on the sustainability of UK’s fashion industry is the result of written submissions and a series of public hearings in November last year.

In giving evidence to the committee, IndustriALL’s assistant general secretary Jenny Holdcroft underlined the importance of freedom of association and the need for industry-wide change and reform of brands’ purchasing practices.

“You cannot deliver change factory by factory because the supply chains are too complex and labour rights violations are systemic,” Jenny Holdcroft said, addressing the Committee. “We need to work together to transform the conditions in the production countries where all of the companies are buying.”

IndustriALL’s ACT initiative with global brands aims to deliver sustainable change in the garment and textile industry by linking the conditions under which brands buy their products to wages negotiated through industry-wide collective agreements.

UK Member of Parliament and Environmental Audit Committee Chair, Mary Creagh, said in the report that it was shocking to see that a group of major retailers fail to protect their workers:

“It’s disappointing that only a third of the retailers we wrote to are signed up to ACT, an important global initiative working towards getting a living wage for all garment workers.”

She also recognised the importance of Global Framework Agreements, noting that the Committee welcomes ASOS becoming the first online retailer to sign a Global Framework Agreement with IndustriALL, committing to the highest possible standards on trade union rights, health and safety, and labour relations.

Following recognition of ACT in the final declaration of the G20 Labour and Employment Ministers in 2017, support for ACT continues to grow. Jenny Holdcroft welcomed the support of the UK Committee, adding to that of the German government, which is cooperating with ACT through its Partnership for Sustainable Textiles.

Jenny Holdcroft said:

“More governments should be following the example of the UK and Germany and calling on brands to sign up to the ACT Commitments in order to transform wages and working conditions in the garment industry.”

At the OECD Forum on Due Diligence Guidance in the Garment and Footwear Sector later this month, a presentation by IndustriALL, ACT and trade unions and employers from Cambodia will encourage governments to call on brands to join ACT and make the same commitments to reform their purchasing practices as has been made by ACT brands.

IndustriALL urges respect for the self-determination and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people

IndustriALL also rejects the external boycott, which has clear political and economic motives that violate Venezuela's sovereignty.

IndustriALL has called on both the government of Venezuela and the opposition to end the confrontation, and has urged both sides to comply with the rule of law and international standards and to engage in dialogue to find a peaceful solution, with support from international organizations.

IndustriALL supports the United Nations’ call for all those involved to commit to inclusive and credible political dialogue to address the challenges of a very complex situation.

IndustriALL stands ready to join these efforts and is encouraging the entire international union movement to support a non-violent solution in order to protect peace and democracy and ensure national and international respect for the sovereignty, development and self-determination of the Venezuelan people.

IndustriALL is also calling on governments and other regional and international democratic institutions to condemn all acts of violence, military and economic intervention and outside interference. Such steps will prevent the political, economic and social tensions in Venezuela from escalating and spreading to other parts of the region.

"We need to work towards a dialogue that is backed by the international community and respects the right to self-determination of the Venezuelan people, without any outside interference. This is the only way to ease the tensions and prevent any escalation in the violence and militarization, which would only aggravate the situation in Venezuela, the wider region and the entire world," said IndustriALL's general secretary Valter Sanches.

Finally, IndustriALL condemns the decision of the Lima Group (endorsed by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru) to recognize the president of the National Assembly and leader of the opposition, Juan Guaidó, after he declared himself president of Venezuela.

ATG Ceylon workers protest repeated rights violations

It follows numerous worker demonstrations in recent days after ATG Ceylon unjustly terminated five employees including union office bearers on 11 January, prompting workers to launch immediate strike action on the same day at the company’s plant in the Katunayake Export Processing Zone.

Since then ATG Ceylon management continues to ignore advice that has come from conciliatory talks, first by the Assistant Labour Commissioner of Negambo division on 16 January and then by the Commissioner General of Labour during mediation proceedings from 21-24 January.

Meanwhile, the management has used a court order to stop the union officers and leaders of IndustriALL affiliate, FTZ&GSEU, from meeting and addressing the protesting workers, thereby restricting union leaders of the fundamental right of interacting with their members.

In a letter to the President of Sri Lanka, Maithripala Sirisena, IndustriALL’s general secretary, Valter Sanches, expressed disappointment over ATG Ceylon’s lack of effort to end the dispute in line with national and international labour standards.

Valter Sanches urged the President of Sri Lanka “to act promptly to put an end to the unlawful dismissals, harassment” and expressed hope, “that it will not be necessary for IndustriALL Global Union to call upon all our affiliates worldwide, and in particular our European affiliates, to urge the European Union to reconsider the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) with your country, on account of the egregious violations of trade union rights.”

Anton Marcus of FTZ&GSEU said:

“The termination of five employees is a gross violation of workers' fundamental rights and goes against the Sri Lankan constitution. ATG Ceylon should respect the proposals given by the labour commissioner and take corrective action to resolve the dispute immediately.

“The company’s aggressive effort to stop union leaders from interacting with striking workers is against the principle of justice. We will continue to challenge discrimination at the workplace, unjust terminations of union leaders and demand dignity and equal treatment of union members.”

“We want living wages and collective agreements”

Romania is the biggest textile, garment, leather and footwear producing country in South-East Europe with 250,000 workers in almost 10,000 factories. Salaries are close to the national minimum wage of 2,080 leis (euro440) per month.

The government has raised the minimum wage in the past years, but moving the payment of social security contributions from companies to workers in 2017 has had a negative impact on workers. With a deduction of over 40 per cent, workers are left with a monthly net pay of around 250-300 euros.

The Social Dialogue Law reform in 2011 destroyed collective bargaining in the country; with a high threshold to conclude agreements, there are practically no sectoral collective agreements left. At the company level, 90 per cent of the “agreements” are signed by “worker representatives”, mostly appointed by the employers.

The law requires 15 workers to form a union. As over 90 per cent of companies have less than 15 employees, in practice a quarter of the workforce is deprived of the fundamental right of freedom of association, guaranteed in the Romanian Constitution and ILO Convention 87.

But after an increase of inequality and in-work poverty, the Romanian government and European institutions seem to be changing their views on collective bargaining. A difficult process in underway in the Romanian parliament, with a strong business lobby against any changes.

However, some textile employers see it differently:

“We want to promote a sectoral collective agreement, linked with increased productivity. Young people do not want to work in our industry, unless the wages go up, but that requires a focus on high quality production”, said Irina Mihai from the FEPAIUS textile employers’ federation.

Doru Lascu, president of the union Confpeltex, agreed:

“Raising the minimum wage is useful, but a sectoral collective agreement is a better tool for addressing salaries and a lot of other issues. For achieving that, we need stronger unions and more representative employer associations.”

Dan Nastase, president of Uniconf union, said that global framework agreements (GFA) guarantee the right for workers to join a union:

“Union density is very low, and we will work on an organizing plan together with other unions. However, we need protection. Too often workers are fired when they try to organize,” said Nastase.

Christina Hajagos-Clausen, IndustriALL textile director, showcased how unions work with global brands; the Bangladesh Accord, how GFAs can be used in organizing, and the Action – Collaboration – Transformation (ACT) initiative to achieve living wages.

Representatives from GFA partners H&M and Inditex, also members of ACT, explained how they in cooperation with unions solve problems when they occur and promote functioning labour-management relations and collective bargaining.

IndustriAll Europe´s general secretary, Luc Triangle, said:

“We ask the Romanian government to reinstall the sector collective bargaining structures destroyed in 2011. It is only through good sector collective bargaining wages and working conditions can be improved and create a future for this important sector in Romania. We also ask that global brands and local allow union access. Stronger unions are key to higher wages.”

IndustriALL assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan said:

“Together with our affiliates we will continue to put pressure on the government to restore union bargaining rights. Global framework agreements are important tools for promoting social dialogue and organizing, and we will use that leverage to support our Romanian affiliates in their efforts to build strong unions and achieve better conditions.”

The seminar in Bucharest on 22-23 January was part of an EU-funded project “Strengthening the capacity of trade unions in South-East Europe to improve wages and working conditions in the garment and footwear sectors”, carried out in cooperation between industriAll Europe and IndustriALL Global Union. The project targets seven countries; Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Northern Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.

Union wins agreement at Saint-Gobain subsidiary

The acknowledgement of trade union rights for the workers represented by IndustriALL affiliate Kristal-İş comes on the back of a long and sometimes difficult struggle supported by the Saint Gobain Union Network members around the world.

Kristal-İş members at İzocam went on an indefinite strike on 18 January after negotiations for an agreement on better pay and working conditions collapsed. Workers at two factories, the Tarsus, Mersin plant, which produces glass wool, and the Gebze plant, which produces mineral wool, participated.

After twelve days of the strike, the company agreed to meet with workers’ representatives on 29 January. On the same day, a comprehensive two-year collective bargaining agreement was signed between the union and the employer.

The agreement includes a major benefit package including four bonuses for each year, extra paid leave, much higher travel and clothing allowances as well as a significant wage increase.

In addition to the legal severance and notice payments, three workers who were unfairly dismissed for leading the organizing drive will receive 18 months compensation.

It was also agreed in the CBA that contract workers will gradually be made permanent.

“Signing the CBA is a big achievement that Kristal-İş has fought hard to get,” says Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL assistant general secretary. “International solidarity has helped to increase pressure on management and we congratulate Kristal-İş on this victory. We look forward to a continued genuine dialogue between the union and İzocam management.”

IndustriALL affiliate Kristal-İş gained legal recognition as the union representing workers at İzocam in May 2018, after a four-and-a-half-year organizing campaign and legal battle, and commenced collective negotiations in August 2018.

İzocam manufactures insulation and is jointly owned by French multinational Saint-Gobain and Kuwaiti investment company Alghanim.

Organizing is a priority for Romanian unions

The opening of the meeting was attended by Bogdan Hossu, President of Cartel Alfa Confederation, and Dumitru Costin, President of BNS. Both underlined the devastating impact of the 2011 amendments to labour legislation on workers and trade unions.

These amendments have considerably undermined unions and eroded their bargaining power. A large majority of collective agreements today are signed by so-called employee representatives with no bargaining experience and skills. The transfer of social security contribution to employees that was put in place last year has worsened workers’ situation.

In addition to international financial institutions, the Foreign Investors Council has played a key role in pushing through a reform of Romania’s Labour Code. Foreign companies are taking advantage of the weak social dialogue law to bypass trade unions and keep wages low.

Participants reported about corporate abuses of workers’ rights, in particular freedom of association, and behaviour that is not in line with companies’ commitment to respecting international core labour standards.

“Companies would not behave that way in their home country,” according to one participant.

Employers’ interference with workers’ right to join or establish a trade union is common practice.

The challenges unions face vary, according to a union leader. There is a strong need for more solidarity to create an environment for genuine social dialogue. Organizing young people is critical.

Young workers are often not acquainted with unions but, as some examples have shown, they can be won over and become active members when their concerns are addressed. A women delegate indicated that a youth and a women committees have been established in her plant and are working well.

Apart from issues linked to the legal and regulatory framework, affiliates acknowledged that union structures and their functioning have to be reviewed, and unionising has to be made priority if real change is to take place. This means drawing up a plan, identifying organising techniques, focusing on capacity building and earmarking resources accordingly.

IndustriAll Europe’s general secretary, Luc Triangle, said:

There is high potential to build stronger trade unions in Romania. High levels of union membership are the basis for higher wages and better working conditions. We must also strengthen collective bargaining structures and intensify transnational organising campaigns. This is the way forward to get equal pay for equal work.

Kemal Özkan, IndustriALL Global Union’ assistant general secretary, stated:

Strong industrial unions are the basis of our bargaining power. We need to rebuild our strength and move towards more unity in Romania. IndustriALL together with IndustriAll European Trade Union will continue to support our Romanian affiliates in their struggle for decent wages and living conditions.

Vale must be held accountable for Brazilian dam disaster

“This is a crime, not an accident. We mourn for the dead and sympathize with the victims of this terrible tragedy. Vale has failed to learn from the past. And now its workers are paying the ultimate price with their lives. There can be no more excuses. It’s time for Vale to listen and take real action to improve safety. The Brazilian authorities must shut down all companies’ operations with tailings dams until they are rigorously inspected,” says IndustriALL Global Union’s general secretary, Valter Sanches.

At the time of writing, at least 60 people have been killed and hundreds are still missing after the tailings dam operated by Brazilian mining company, Vale, released a huge wave of iron ore waste.

This latest tragedy comes after IndustriALL and BWI filed an OECD complaint against Vale and British-Australian mining giant, BHP, following the Fundão Dam disaster in Mariana, also in Minas Gerais. The November 2015 tailings dam failure claimed the lives of 19 people and was Brazil’s worst environmental disaster.

IndustriALL and BWI are demanding a thorough investigation into the causes of the Brumadinho dam failure, which includes participation of unions. The global unions are also calling for immediate consultation with unions and civil society on tailings dam safety, and expeditious and just compensation for victims.

Vale has ignored the International Council on Mining & Metals guidelines on preventing catastrophic failure of tailings storage facilities, released after the Fundão Dam collapse. Further, it has failed to adhere to standards in tailings dam management outlined by the multistakeholder Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance standard (IRMA).

Vale is the world’s biggest producer of iron ore, which is converted by its customers into steel and is a vital part of metal industry supply chains.

“IndustriALL is calling on all companies in Vale’s supply chains, including multinational steel and auto producers, to share responsibility for this disaster and to use their leverage with Vale and the government of Brazil to ensure it is never repeated,” adds Sanches.

Ambet Yuson, general secretary of BWI says:

“This tragic accident could have been prevented had measures been put in place when it was revealed publicly that Brumadinho dam posed safety risk to workers and the community. Vale failed to adhere to these warnings and once again shown its disregard to safety. Workers have paid tragically with their lives.”

Will blockchains verify virtue in the value chain?

– By Brian Kohler and Glen Mpufane

The lure of the quick technological fix

We live in a time when new technologies seem to promise new solutions to old problems. IndustriALL has studied the digitalization of industry and the rise of an assortment of advanced and disruptive production technologies: Industry 4.0.

An example of digitalization is blockchain technology. Blockchains are promising everything from the protection of privacy to its final destruction, from a new intrusion of artificially intelligent machines to the salvation of humanity.

As discussed in IndustriALL’s research paper, “The challenge of Industry 4.0 and the demand for new answers”, mining falls into the low immediate impact category of Industry 4.0. However, blockchain technology ranks high among pathways proposed to address and tackle labour abuses and other unsustainable practices in mineral supply chains.

What is a blockchain?

Fundamentally, blockchain is an information security strategy. It provides a deeper level of security than defending a database held on a computer server. Blockchain encrypts specific records or “blocks” of data, structured in what are called linked lists to form a “chain”. Each item on each list has identifying data and a link to the previous and the next item. Each new block of data must authenticate itself at particular points by some kind of proof, for example performing a mathematical operation, in order to be added to the chain. This proof must be difficult to falsify but easy to verify, to discourage spammers and hackers.

This creates a data chain where one can be reasonably certain that each item was added in chronological order and not manipulated. It works fairly well with Bitcoin, for example. It is this property that makes blockchain seem attractive for the task of verifying the cobalt supply chain.

The example of cobalt in the DRC

A traceable and verifiable digital record of cobalt from its origin in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through to its installation in the battery of a Tesla car would, proponents argue, enable anyone to know exactly when and in which mine – and potentially even by which miners – the particular cobalt in a particular battery was produced. This could provide assurance that environmental and social abuses, such as child labour, or abuse of trade union rights – were not used in the production of the cobalt, or if they were, enable tracing and tackling the abuses for remedy or punishment. Access to remedy is fundamental, and represents the litmus test for blockchain technology’s utility in bridging the divide between abuse and remedy.

Technological limitations

Even though we use terms like blockchain, in reality there is no abstract entity called a blockchain. It is just a network of physical computers, owned by a variety of people, using an agreed-upon authentication protocol. Where are these physical computers, and what are their characteristics? Are they vulnerable to failure or compromise?

The application of blockchain to the cobalt supply chain raises the problem of capacity. It can be assumed that most small-scale producers, particularly so-called artisanal miners, will not have the resources or capacity to participate as a link in the chain. Artisanal mining, even though it is legal in the DRC and forms a large part of the country’s mining landscape, presents a huge challenge for the supply chain of cobalt. The industry is forced to sell through bigger operators, creating new opportunities for corruption and the input of questionable data. Technology does not ensure trust in the human sense.

There are geopolitical boundaries within the internet, therefore public blockchains may be difficult to implement in some regions, as could possibly be the case with the DRC. Furthermore, there are developing countries to whom rich countries or multinational corporations will try to sell specific implementations of data infrastructure. This may lock a developing country into one standard that is incompatible with others. Intercommunication and standardization between potentially thousands of actors in different regions in a value chain may be a problem.

Immutability is one of the words frequently used to describe blockchain, and it is this characteristic that makes it suitable for cryptocurrencies. However, it remains vulnerable to fraudulent or misidentified data, particularly at the beginning of the chain. Given the lengths that some employers have gone to avoid or falsify social audits, and the resources that some corporate and government actors have to undermine any system that restricts their behaviour, it would be naive to assume that this will never be attempted. Recent reports involving a major player in the diamond industry point to this as a real possibility. Serious allegations by a major international diamond trader, the Rapaport Group, have emerged against De Beers, accusing it of obscuring the source of origin of the diamonds it markets across its extended sightholder network. It is important to note that these allegations have been made against the backdrop of De Beers’ ground-breaking announcement about blockchain technology being implemented to track the origins of its diamonds and as proof of its ethical sourcing practice.

It all comes down to ensuring the integrity of not just the technology, but also the data that is input to the technology. The current players in the DRC cobalt mining industry do not, at least for now, inspire confidence towards ensuring that integrity. With the emergence of the supply chain sustainability standards, could blockchain technology be the bridge between abuse and remedy? That possibility will remain only aspirational unless this technology can be fully adapted to the non-mathematical characteristics of sustainability’s social dimension – and the quality of input data is assured. Blockchain technology does not alter the principle of “garbage in; garbage out”.

Potential pitfalls and unintended consequences

The traceability and verifiability of blockchain raises concerns about personal privacy. Granted, privacy is not an objective of its application to a value chain such as cobalt. However, it could be problematic if someone identified in the chain were to invoke the EU’s “right to be forgotten” legislation, for example. Removing one piece of data could potentially damage the entire chain. Businesses, too, have privacy concerns. How will these be addressed?

Is the proposal for a public blockchain, or a private one? If the former, who will set the rules and standards that govern it, and can they be enforced on a network of independently controlled nodes? If the latter, who would own it? There are at present different proprietary systems. Who will own the data?

Suppose that a particular lot of cobalt is identified as having child labour in its production or violations of the rights of workers, what then? Will blockchain help law enforcement? Will the cobalt itself be forever tainted, or it will be used nonetheless? A complication is that the metal can be melted and added to any other, becoming physically and chemically untraceable at that point – emphasizing the importance of chain-of-custody in sustainability reporting.

The proposal to use blockchain technology to trace a problematic raw material like cobalt emphasizes the difficulty that blockchain experts are data specialists, computer scientists, and cryptographers. Cryptocurrencies can be viewed as products of pure mathematics. However, the environmental and especially social dimensions of sustainability are not so neat and tidy. Social scientists, human rights lawyers, and ecologists are not typically experts in the technology. This gap would need to be bridged.

Credibility of the blockchain solution

Past attempts to solve complex social problems with a technological quick fix have often failed. Information technologies that were supposed to democratize the gathering and distribution of news have instead isolated, alienated and fragmented society. Blockchain is a technology. The problems in the cobalt supply chain are social, cultural, environmental, political and economic, and we must always be wary of unintended and unforeseen consequences, for example an explosion in energy consumption to support the blockchain, confounding of certification with truth, or corruption. If evidence of human rights abuses arise after the initiation of a blockchain, will its immutability become a liability rather than an asset?

Much of present knowledge of blockchains arises from cryptocurrencies. In contrast, performance in the social dimension of sustainability is notoriously difficult to evaluate. Typically, the data will be qualitative rather than quantitative, and to a degree subjective rather than objective. This does not make these social indicators less important than economic or environmental ones that are easier to measure and track. However, the attempt to apply blockchain to this problem is to try to apply a solution worked out for an easily quantifiable item – a unit of currency – to a social problem. There are at least two concerns here. One is the assumption that something that has social value can be assigned a monetary value that everyone would agree on. This is rarely, if ever, the case. Furthermore, even if we pretend that we are only assigning a numeric rating with no implied financial value, it becomes a hard number that falsely suggests a degree of scientific certainty.

The real state of virtue of a particular commodity, e.g. cadmium, can only be established by audit. There is an entire industry of people and organizations who specialize in social and environmental auditing, some connected to the traditional financial auditing houses, many independent of them. Blockchain will not change that. It is the output of such audits that will become part of the digital signature of a particular lot of cadmium, an electronic tag on that lot. Unfortunately, it will prove easier to verify the authenticity of the tag, than the real-world conditions under which the commodity was produced.

Alternative solutions

In the case of cobalt, managing the value-chain data could also be accomplished with a database, or a distributed ledger, without blockchain. One question to ask is, what value does a blockchain add that these other approaches lack? Are blockchains the best solution to the problem of verifying behaviour in the cobalt value chain?

Although there is promise in the use of protocols such as blockchain to verify or certify the value chain for cobalt, we should be cautious. It may not add very much benefit versus other, less complicated technologies. Finally, we should not confuse traceability or certifiability with virtue – a dimension of sustainability that will remain complex and difficult to quantify.

Ecopetrol unfairly dismisses union leaders in Colombia

USO'snational executive committee called the dismissals a flagrant violation of the current collective bargaining agreement. It also condemned the company’s attempts to use the unilateral guidelines on the dismissal of Ecopetrol workers to fire Ariel Corzo and Edwin Castaño, who are also members of the national executive committee.

The dismissals are part of a policy of criminalizing union work in Colombia, resulting in disciplinary, criminal and administrative proceedings against union leaders across all sectors nationwide.

The union says that both company management and the Colombian government systematically undermine union workers, in violation of both domestic and international labour standards.

The timing of the dismissals was no coincidence. Ecopetrol fired the workers shortly after USO had urged people to take to the streets in protest against the government's intention to sell off some of Ecopetrol's assets.

IndustriALL's general secretary, Valter Sanches, has written to the president of Colombia, Iván Duque, and the CEO of Ecopetrol, Felipe Bayón, calling on them to reinstate the dismissed workers and to ensure that the right to freedom of association is guaranteed both at Ecopetrol and in Colombia as a whole.

In his letter to President Duque, Sanches wrote:

“We urge your government to ensure that the necessary conditions and guarantees are in place to protect the right to freedom of association and the lives of all social and union leaders in Colombia.”