On its 318th Reunion on June 21st, 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland, and in the document GB.318/INS/ the Administration Council of the International Labor Organization approved the 368 Report of the Union Freedom Committee –CLS-, ILO’s specialized organ for the evaluation of the application of international labor principles and norms regarding union freedom.

In its report the Committee pointed at case 2609, presented by the Guatemalan Union, Indigenous and Peasant Movement –MSICG- and regarding grave acts of antiunion violence and impunity surrounding them, the inefficiency and total failure of labor justice, the making of antiunion lists and the state policy of obstructing the Constitution of Union Organizations, among other important issues. Likewise, the Committee pointed at cases 2948 and 2989, also presented by MSICG, with urgent callings.
 
This time, and for the fifth consecutive time, the Committee deeply regretted the many acts of violence listed in the complaint and stated its great and growing concern in the face of the high number of assassinated union leaders and members, as well as for the allegations regarding the elaboration of blacklists and the climate of total impunity. In its conclusions, the Committee textually said:

“the Committee urges the Government to take immediately the strongest measures to fight the impunity which is made evident in relation with the allegations of antiunion violence, and to ensure full consideration of the union freedom principles in the actions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and criminal jurisdictions.” The underlining is ours.

Likewise, the Committee witnessed the great flaws of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, putting special emphasis in the fact that the Prosecutor for Crimes Against Unionists only deals with a reduced number of cases, and that its investigations have still not produced any sentence in the criminal jurisdictions, and it noted that on the three murders (Mr. Romero Istacuy,  Mr. Pedro Antonio Garcia and Mr. Manuel de Jesús Ramírez) considered by the MP as assassinations with an antiunion motif. Despite this, the special prosecutor’s investigations have produced no tangible results to this day.

Finally, the Committee acknowledged the additional information and new allegations sent by MSICG through communications dated February 15th, 17th, 18th, 20th and 22nd 2013 regarding the labor impunity climate and the obstacles in the way of acknowledging and registering union organizations, especially in the cases of the Union for the Dignifying of the workers of the Tributary Administration Superintendent’s Office (SIPROSAT) and the Case of the Union of Workers of the Guatemalan League Against Heart Disease (SIDETRALICO), as well as regarding actions of harassment and criminal persecution against the Union of Workers of the Guatemalan Institute of Social Security, the Union of Professional Workers of the Guatemalan Institute of Social Security, the Union of Organized Workers of the Nation’s Attorney General and the Union  of Workers of the General Accountant of the Nation’s Office, United for Development.

In the face of all this, MSICG shares the opinion of the 368th Report of the Committee on Union Freedom in the sense that the situation in Guatemala is still very grave and that no steps forward are seen, which is even more concerning because of the attempts to hide this fact through the signing of documents, such as the Agreement Memorandum signed by the Government, CACIF, CGTG, CUSG, FENASSEP, FENASEP, FENASTEG, FESTRAS, FETRACUR, SNTSG, STEG, and UNSITRAGUA to set in motion ILO’s Framework of Technical Cooperation: Decent Labor Program for the Republic of Guatemala 2012-2015 and later through the signing of an Agreement Memorandum between the International Union Confederacy to which CGTC, CUSG and UNSITRAGUA are affiliated, and the Government of Guatemala, through which the decision of ILO’s Administration Council about the installation of an Inquiry Commission for the State of Guatemala was delayed and even attempted to obstruct.
 
In this context, MSICG ratifies once more its commitment with the Guatemalan working class to continue taking action both nation-wide and at an international level to ensure that union freedom will stop being just a dream for which Guatemalan workers pay with stigmatizing, hunger, persecutions, harassment and in many cases, even with their own lives.

MSICG states once more that it is necessary for unionism to abandon its role of accomplice with practices that gravely affect the construction of a real, participative and inclusive democracy in Guatemala, and that it must congruently assume its duties as a tool for social transformation.


Guatemala, June 27th, 2013.

POLITICAL COUNCIL
GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT
MSICG