IRTF News

The high risks attached to labour organising in Colombia have once again been emphasised with the murder of yet another trade unionist, as the country remains by far the most dangerous in the world for those in the role. On Monday 29 March 2021, Carlos Vidal was shot dead while walking his dog near his home in Florida, Valle del Cauca. Carlos was the president of the SINTRACOS union for sugar industry workers and a member of the CGT trade union centre. He was also known for his community activism. Following on from at least 20 murders of trade unionists in 2020, the latest case is at least the fourth this year.

In Nicaragua, governmental recognition of land rights was the first step in tackling incursions by non-Indigenous settlers from western Nicaragua and the violent conflicts they sometimes produce. But because colonization of Indigenous territories has been taking place for decades, taking the next steps – delineation of the territories, dealing with illegal titles (primarily given under previous governments) and potentially removing settlers – is a complex process that involves delicate negotiation and agreement at the local level. Sadly but inevitably, the invasions by settlers have become another issue on which to attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Also, Nicaragua briefs and updates are included.

A Honduran Lenca Indigenous activist who helped led a fight against the construction of a dam has been killed. Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante led a local group called “Communities United,” which was active in hamlets near the Rio Ulúa and which opposed the El Tornillito hydroelectric dam. He was shot dead in front of his children. “We condemn the killing of yet another comrade and activist,” said Betty Vásquez, the coordinator of the Santa Barbara Environmental Movement. “It is not conceivable, it is not right, that they criminalize people, persecute people and later kill them for defending the land. We consider this a political assassination.”

US Federal Court ruling: Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, a native of Honduras, conspired with high-ranking Honduran politicians and military and National Police to operate a cocaine lab in Honduras and distribute cocaine using air and maritime routes. FUENTES RAMIREZ paid a bribe of at least approximately $25,000 to Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández Alvarado (“JOH”), who was at the time the president of the Honduran National Congress, and allowed JOH to access millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine from FUENTES RAMIREZ’s laboratory. JOH instructed FUENTES RAMIREZ to report directly to JOH’s brother, Juan Antonio Hernández Alvarado (“Tony Hernández”), for purposes of their drug trafficking partnership. Finally, JOH told FUENTES RAMIREZ that he wanted to make the DEA think that Honduras was fighting drug trafficking, but that instead he was going to eliminate extradition and “stuff drugs up the gringos’ noses,” referring to flooding the United States with cocaine.

According to payment vouchers for the current melon season for companies of Fyffes in Honduras, they are not paying the minimum wage which was decreed for the agriculture sector in 2020. In April 2020, International Labor Rights Forum, Fair World Project, and the International Union of Food Workers published a report alleging ongoing labour rights violations faced by 6,500 workers on Fyffes’ melon plantations in Honduras since 2016. Abuses detailed in the report include toxic chemical exposure, wage theft, union busting and poor working conditions made more unsafe amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Fyffes is the top importer of melons to the United States, which are sold in major supermarkets across the country. In 2019, Costco and Whole Foods stopped buying Fyffes' Honduran melons due to the ongoing allegations.

Unit, a new tech startup, is looking to bolster private-sector unionization rates by focusing on small workplaces that do not normally get the attention of large labor groups across the US. The company, launched in December 2020, offers individual groups looking to organize software tools, a web app, and dedicated staff who act as labor advisers to better help clients navigate unionization efforts. To begin with, individuals can invite their coworkers onto the platform. Once enough interest in unionizing builds up, Unit assigns a full-time adviser to the drive. "We have a mission to support the rights of workers to organize and improve their places of work,"  Unit founder Jaimie Earl White said. "Mission-wise, that is very aligned with the traditional labor movement and what people have been trying to do for centuries."