Carta a ONU

Queridos compañeros, enterense de una denuncia elevada por Anpretel a la organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) referente a nuestro proyecto.

La misma es remitida a un promedio de cien (100) instancias internacionales en materia de derechos humanos y de organizaciones sindicales.

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Colombia, City of Cali, Valle del Cauca, May 28, 2008

Gentlemen:
United Nations Organization

United States of America

Re: INTERVENTION CASE #2297 BEFORE OIT - and the COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT - VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT PLAN - Company: TELECOM, 3,200 EMPLOYEES LAID OFF IN COLOMBIA

"TELECOM", the National Telecommunications Company modeled an exemplary, vibrant, and dynamic institution which boosted the economy for 56 years in COLOMBIA. It was built with the workforce of its approximate eleven thousand workers and accompanied by the SECOND LARGEST LABOR UNION (SITTELECOM).

The intrusion of neoliberals in the nineties, demanded the reduction of its state apparatus to the least expression, and therefore, SPECIAL SYSTEMS OF COMPENSATED RETIREMENT, or VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT PLANS were implemented, (Decree 1660/90), and were declared NULL AND VOID BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT in a substantial judgment C-479/92.

Meanwhile, the same new POLITICAL CONSTITUTION, issued in 1991, uttered a TRANSITORY CONSTITUTIONAL ARTICLE 20 with which it set conditions for subsequent dismissals in terms of the structure of the State.

But that Constitution conditioned the ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS in the sense that only the GOVERNMENT could advance them, and did not do so, it delegated them. For the term of 18 months, they would have to be done and TELECOM did it in 42 months 6 DAYS. It prescribed that it would be done under the study of senior members of the STATE COUNCIL, whom demonstrably were always opposed and yet it was done against their wishes. It stated that the RESTRUCTURATION did not require changing the legal nature of companies, but was not complied with. It further stated that the PERSONNEL PLANTS would have to be restructured, just so they would be in harmony with the new constitution which was also misrepresented.

More clearly, THE CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE WAS THROWN OVER A CLIFF.

In this way, we embody one of the first experiments in the matter of VOLUNTARY RETIREMENT PLANS, which in reality were constituted as genuine MASSIVE LAYOFFS applied in Colombia in order to adjust, shall we say, the State apparatus.

The lawsuits through legal, administrative and control channels, did not delay, as this first package of reforms involved 62 INSTITUTIONS, hastening the Government to produce adjustments since these plans unleashed any series of violations in terms of internal legal ordinances such as: JUST CAUSE, CONCILIATIONS, CONSTRAINTS, LACK OF A FRAMEWORK LAW that condenses retirement, CAMOUFLAGING of planning as RETIREMENT PLAN, when in fact it was an unquestionable MASSIVE LAYOFF, and such.

This led to innovations on a daily basis an effective way to untie staff en masse, subsequently creating for it the LAW OF FISCAL ADJUSTMENT, ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS, RENEWAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, and the NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT LAW PLAN.

The sequence of mechanisms to DISMANTLE COMPANIES shows the weakness of initial attempts.

The strategy consists of DECIMATING the strength of those who represent the workers, i.e. WEAKEN THE LABOR UNION and once thrown into ostracism, it devastates the company with PRIVATIZATIONS, MERGERS, RESTRUCTURING, SUPPRESSION or SALE. The following step is to subject to the entity to question, displaying it in the media as "UNFEASIBLE" and then immediately guiding the legal figure of interest, so that personnel could then be hired through COOPERATIVES, CIVIL CONTRACTS, but without LABOR UNIONS nor options for instituting them, WITHOUT A COLLECTIVE CONVENTION and WITHOUT AN ADMINISTRATIVE CARREER or the equivalent of a status of assurance of employment stability.

They resorted to the PUBLIC FORCE WITHOUT ANY WARNING, especially before those companies which were more difficult to extinguish, treating their officials as TRUE OUTLAWS. This has been the case with labor unions as strong as ECOPETROL, INRAVISION, SOCIAL SECURITY, SENA, TELECOM, and some entities in the power sector.

In fact we have filed substantial lawsuits before diverse courts with whatever series of evidence we have been able to gather, thus encountering replies which were generally adverse, but moreover EVASIVE, OMISSIVE or at least DEVOID OF SUBSTANCE. We are not pointing out that our justice or administration are INCAPABLE, as in Colombia there are excellent JURISTS and administrators, except that in the background there seems to be a SURREPTITIOUS ORDER that occurs from the executive branch toward the JUDICIAL BRANCH.

It is evident that, through BULLETINS 003 and 004 / August and SEPTEMBER/06, signed by Dr. Jose Alfredo Escobar Araujo, former President of the Supreme Judicial Council, who was unable to contain the pressure and instructed all judges and magistrates in the country to ruin all lawsuits against TELECOM.

The hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to JUSTICE cause us to threaten with the establishment of A DEFINITIVE RECOMMENDATION BY the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva Switzerland in 2002. Therefore we have filed a complaint (2297 ILO) RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT, in 2004, in which they leave a consistent task in: "REPORT IN WHICH THE COMMITTEE ON SYNDICAL LIBERTY, REQUESTS THAT THE GOVERNMENT KEEP IT INFORMED OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE SITUATION”. That text has a connotation of grounds, according to ILO, and we are, I repeat, expecting a Definite recommendation, focusing on violations of syndical exercise and the extinction of the SECOND MOST VIGOROUS ORGANIZATION IN THE COUNTRY, "THE TELECOM LABOR UNION" - (SITTELECOM).

The Ignominy is MERCILESS. The unstoppable progress and the solutions from the ILO are distant smoke. The COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT has been monitored for twenty years and the results are very precarious.

We have provided whatever evidence regarding violation of international conventions 87/48 98/49 have been required of us, likewise those regarding breaches in human rights, therefore, before this ILO instance only these topics can be ventilated. But, if it regards internal violations, our conviction and firmness to prove it have been total and innumerable.

The pressure of union organizations, as our most important CENTRAL WORKERS CTC, CUT, CGT have been so momentous that they achieved two visits by senior leaders of the ILO, one in October 2005 and another in November last year. But what have been its results?

Time passes and passes evidence everywhere and the results are very incipient.

The results of the last Tripartite High-level visit from the ILO to Colombia from the 23rd to the 28th of November /07 were given recently in March 2008 and again we encountered a FINE, FLORID, and DIPLOMATIC speech which contains the best of intentions: "The government sets the best examples, the government wants... the government makes great efforts…, the government has committed itself,… but the solutions that we are seeking DESPERATELY: “NONE” – effective or real deeds: "None".

Meanwhile, our people are HUNGRY; there are no options in the job market since we are all old. They fall into prostitution, recycling, odd jobs, and the most indecent and unworthy jobs, therefore causing indebtedness, loss of homes, loss of their families, illnesses of all kinds, without a minimum wage, without any social security, and in the end, ENDURING in spite of the fact that we, the former officials WITHOUT EXCEPTION have some PENSION BONDS that cannot be activated because the law does not bind them, but likewise, IT IS OUR MONEY.

Subsequent to our retirement, many other institutions have been granted AT LEAST AN ANTICIPATED PENSION, based on the BONUSES that were constituted by them, WHY WASN´T THE SAME DONE FOR THE TELECOM STAFF ?

Why does the ILO have to be so insensitive? Why so much permissiveness? Why so much credibility to the government´s intentions and not to the REQUIREMENTS OF SOME FACTS? Why so much UNMERCIFULLNESS for three thousand two hundred families? Good INTENTIONS DO NOT SOLVE ANYTHING; we do not care ABOUT THEM. We ask of the UNITED NATIONS: “SOLUTIONS”, “SOLUTIONS”-

REAL DEEDS: - “NOW”, “RIGHT NOW”- because the anguish and desperation are corroding, besieging, and killing us. And, we repeat, WE HAVE THE MONEY in the form of PENSION BONDS to our credit, but this is only a matter of POLITICAL WILL.

Being that the ILO is the maximum universal hierarchy in terms of labor, why does it have to be so complacent? Why does it have to be so DELAYED? Why does it have to be so Evasive? Why then such a transcendental institution? We have been begging for HELP for SIX YEARS, and the results, I repeat: ZERO.

The real reasons are entangled in the TELECOM case, the RETIREMENT PLAN is proffered. It is assured, in a campaign for the PRESIDENCY OF THE GOVERNMENT, that the company will be respected in an inescapable manner, but once in office: it kills the labor union, it rejects a COLLECTIVE CONVENTION, it ignores an ADMINISTRATIVE CARREER of law that is a status of labor stability, I reiterate, of Law and the Company continues:

1. With the same trade name

2. With the same premises

3. With the same infrastructure

4. With exactly the same pattern

5. With the same services

…but without LABOR UNIONS, without CONVENTIONS, without the same ADMINISTRATIVE CARREER and with new hires that were, indeed, very ridiculous. Our plan occurred in 1995, and in mid-June of 2003, the sale of more than half of this State-owned company to a Spanish multinational was produced.

Lies come and go, and when there are visits from senior officials from international entities, they are shown an absolutely VIRTUAL COUNTRY. THEY ARE NEVER SHOWN REALITY, they are taken on “AN EXCURSION” to the best places portraying a MODEL COUNTRY that, as it has some commendable things, there exists much “INFLEXIBILITY” in what regards the working class.

For example, when the visit from the HIGH-LEVEL Commission of THE ILO WAS RECEIVED in 2005, they were taken to places such as, among others, a company called Siderurgica del Pacifico. There, they were portrayed an exemplary Company, but was sold to a Brazilian company before a year had transpired.

But the curious thing is the "coupled identity" that proliferates in the high courts as well as in the lower courts, exposing in them a number of omissions in their reviews and, as a general rule, the results are always ADVERSE.

We are confident that we OWN A MYRIAD REASONS owning myriad of reason and we are ready to prove THEM wherever and to whoever need be. Sadly, our struggle so far has been so depressing and tortuous, that with great faith, we shall find our JUST JUDGES.

We have another ongoing case in process before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights identified as case #P757-05, in which we were able to address violations against the interior of the country, such as in: human rights, but the backup in workload in that instance is such that it does not give us early indications of a ruling, which we believe could be very radical.

Specific request

That the ORGANIZATION OF United Nations intercede "immediately”, before the Government of Colombia, before the International Labour Organization ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, and before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, so that a most JUST PETITION can be absolved within which the scheme of constitutional equality can be granted to all of this personnel that was FIRED FROM TELECOM, as has been done with so many other entities of the State that were reduced or suppressed under the same modality, retirement plans, and that it consist of a retirement pension, payable wholly and sufficiently with our own money, the pension bonds.

We require, first and foremost, an urgent solution to this request and we especially appreciate any action allusive to this matter.

Compliments

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION TELECOM RETITRMENT PLAN – (ANPRETEL/95)

REYNALDO VIDAL JARA

President

MANUEL GUILLERMO GARCIA ESTUPIÑAN

Fiscal

HERNAN FRANCO

Vice President

WILLIAM MONTEALEGRE ARIAS

Treasurer

Calle 42 A 43-11 Colombia – Ciudad de Cali Valle, teléfonos 3384560 6809548 email anpretel@hotmail.com reyanpretel@hotmail.com