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March 31, 2003 The SINTRAEMCALI-Uribe Showdown "You must respect me!" shouted president Uribe Vélez across the table at SINTRAEMCALI union president Lucho Hernandez. Lucho was calm, "I respect the president, but the last part of what you just said is not true." "Yes, he did say it!" shouted the audience. This verbal confrontation on March 10 was shown on national television and reported in all the Colombian press, where a union leader daring to stand up to Uribe is big news. The setting was a supposed "public" forum in which Uribe and his Superintendent of Public Services presented their options for the future of the EMCALI public services corporation in Cali. The meeting was packed with employers and politicians and took place inside a military airbase. Lucho, accompanied by Congress representative Alexander Lopez and three representatives of Cali's poor communities, had to argue his way in. There are two "publics" in Colombia: the elite and the common people. Uribe's consultation was obviously meant only for the elite club.
Uribe's wants to liquidate EMCALI and sell it off. His second option is to keep EMCALI formally in the public sector, but on the conditions that SINTRAEMCALI's Collective Agreement is broken, and that a Social Capitalization Fund is established. This Fund would manage all EMCALI's debts and be controlled by the corporation's creditors—the U.S. company Intergen and the national and international banks whose debt demands are bleeding the corporation-along with token representation from the workers and service users. In Uribe's proposal the Fund would be able to direct decisions on investment, debt and the business's operational contracts. Essentially it would be a public-private partnership with the private element—finance capital—in the driving seat. What is the specific point in dispute between Uribe and Lucho? Uribe claimed that on his previous visit to Cali on August 9 that he had committed government support to the Social Capitalization Fund. Lucho pointed out that he had not and even the pro-establishment El Tiempo newspaper reported that video evidence proved him right. Uribe relies on intimidation to get his way. He set a two-week deadline, which ended on March 24, for the union to back down. All sections of the establishment from the press to the army are piling on the pressure. But SINTRAEMCALI workers enjoy massive support from the Cali community, national leaders of the Polo Democratico opposition, and from state sector unions (education, health, oil, telecommunications, etc.) who are likewise challenging the privatization program, which in Colombia means fighting for their very survival. In a week of solidarity action Congressman Wilson Borja, Senator Gustavo Preto, former presidential candidate Lucho Garzon, indigenous representative Taita Lorenzo Almendra, intellectuals Fals Borda and Daniel Libreros, and other trade unions came to Cali to rally in defense of EMCALI. They addressed three mass meetings; the real community had come out to hear them, not Uribe's elite. Alexander Lopez and Wilson Borja pointed out how Uribe's National Development Plan is being put to the test in the struggle to defend public services. Gustavo Preto emphasized that alongside the campaign for an abstention against Uribe's referendum, the struggle to defend EMCALI has become the "point of inflexion" of the mass movement to break neoliberalism in Colombia and that "from this point we unite, and the struggle goes up." Solidarity for this united struggle came internationally through messages of support from Ecuador, Spain, from UNISON, War on Want, TUC/Justice for Colombia and several individuals in Britain, as well as contributions from a delegation of ten U.S. trade unionists and the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. The regional Public Defender, a state official akin to an Ombudsman, called a Public Defense Hearing on March 12. The government was invited but did not attend. Lots of young people from SENA, the apprentice education institution, arrived chanting and singing. An auditorium for 300 people was packed to overflowing, with several hundred more outside. SINTRAEMCALI presented a full report, showing that EMCALI's biggest problem is the huge debt it is carrying. The corporation is a microcosm of the country as a whole; the minimum condition for viability is non-payment of corrupt contracts (the contract with Intergen is an Enron like scam) and renegotiation of the debt. Colombia's army and police showed no respect for those attending the hearing. While the hearing was taken place, they were stripping trade unionist bodyguards of their arms and filming the leaders. A special army roadblock was in installed to harass the leaders afterwards. Human rights defender Berenice Celeyta was directly threatened by an army sergeant who said, "Go kill yourself!" During the latest round of negotiations that took place at a military airbase near Cali on Monday, March 24, the union offered to cut workers benefits by 20 million pesos annually, as a sacrifice to help save the EMCALI corporation. But Uribe rejected the offer saying it was insufficient and set a new deadline of May 1. According to Lucho Hernandez, "Uribe wants the workers to hand over all our rights, that is his price for not liquidating EMCALI. But once we have given up our rights, he will then privatize the corporation anyway." Everyone is now very concerned for Lucho Hernandez's life, his stand against Uribe is recognized as a psychological breakthrough against the climate of fear. If the privatization of EMCALI is carried out, it will be through trickery and violence. Andy Higginbottom is a member of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
Copyright © 2003 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved. |
This
goes to the core of the dispute over EMCALI's future. Are water,
electricity and telecommunications services to be for the whole
community or just the rich? For years the SINTRAEMCALI union has
been battling for genuine community-led services. EMCALI has the
lowest rates of all public and private corporations in Colombia.
General prices rose by 27.8 percent between 1998 and 2001. The privatized
electricity corporation CODENSA increased its prices to the lower
strata by 46 percent, while EMCALI has kept charges just below the
rate of inflation.