The Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO and the Washington Office on Latin America cordially invite you to a brown-bag lunch on:

Colombia’s Port Workers:
Dangerous Work without Protection of Labor Rights

Featuring

Javier Marrugo
President of the Port Union

Javier Marrugo is the president of the Unión Portuaria (UP, Port Union). The UP is a Colombian union established in 2009 that represents workers of the four major seaports in the country as well as workers in non-maritime ports operations. The UP established locales in the four ports last year and continues to grow. Under Mr. Marrugo’s leadership, the new union has worked with retired port workers from the UP’s predecessor unions to organize subcontracted ports workers. Roughly 75 percent of the workforce in Colombia’s ports is employed under flexible non-labor contracts, meaning that workers are unable to legally join unions. For more than a year, the union has been undertaking an intensive campaign to formalize employment in the ports, where a largely Afro-Colombian workforce labors and receives no social protection benefits. The workers have limited, if any, workplace safety protection and frequently earn less than minimum wage. Since the late spring of 2010, the UP has been meeting with the Government of Colombia in an effort to persuade officials to take action on the labor conditions of the ports. During his visit to the US, Mr. Marrugo will be speaking about labor conditions in the ports sector and the abuse of third-party contracting to circumvent workers’ right to unionize in Colombia.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011
12:30-1:30pm
WashingtonOffice on Latin America
1666 Connecticut Ave NW, 4^th Floor conference room
Washington, DC

Simultaneous translation from Spanish to English will be provided