In this frame, the Guatemalan Union, Indigenous and Peasant Movement –MSICG-, as main plaintiff before ILO’s control organs, expects that finally, in March, 2,013, the Administration Council takes the decision about sending the case to a Poll Commission that allows Guatemala’s workers to exert their union rights freely, in the face of the worsening of the lack of compliance with Agreement 87 since the current government’s assuming office.

Likewise, MSICG makes a calling to ILO’s Administration Council, as well as the International Unionism to not be tricked by the new AGREEMENT SIGNED by the Government, CACIF and several MINOR UNION ORGANIZATIONS, many of which are not and have never been plaintiff organizations before ILO’s control organs, and many of which are financed by the current Government or have among their priorities its social programs.

In this frame, we should remember how these very organizations have been a part, jointly or separately, of several agreements signed with different governments in due time, so they were presented before the Commission of Regulations of the International Labor Conference to avoid pronunciations regarding the violations on union freedom in Guatemala, or to avoid statements in this sense by the Experts Commission on the Application of Convenes and Recommendations.  Among these agreements, we should mention the tripartite agreement signed during the High Level Mission of the year 2,008, and the constant agreements of the tripartite Commission on international labor agreements, etcetera.

MSICG congratulates the congruent posture of CTC, FESEBS and STINDE, by not endorsing with their signature the aforementioned document to thus facilitate impunity regarding the violations to union freedom that motivates the petition of the Poll Commission for Guatemala.

MSIGC highlights the scarce validity of such document, since it has not been endorsed by the main plaintiff in the case against Guatemala (MSICG), and since it is endorsed by many organizations that do not actually sign it and it is signed by an honor witness whose presence is not proved anywhere in the document.

Attached, is the document of the Administration Council and the Agreement signed between the Government and the Minority union organizations, which is now being used to argument that a Poll Commission might not be necessary because this Agreement solves the violations to Agreement 87 in Guatemala, even though the national programs for decent labor are part of a different dynamic, unrelated directly to those situations regarding which ILO’s control organs have spoken constantly and clearly.

POLITICAL COUNCIL
GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT
–MSICG-

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_193178.pdf