9 August 2010 ICEM InBrief Colombia Contract Workers Killed at Colombia’s Cerrejón Mine, Ren

[Judi Lynn]

9 August 2010
Colombia Contract Workers Killed at Colombia’s Cerrejón Mine, Renewing Cry for Unionisation

A deadly accident killed four maintenance workers at the Carbones del Cerrejón mine complex in La Guajira department, north-eastern Colombia, on Wednesday, 4 August. The ICEM affiliated trade union at the mine, Sintracarbón, represents 3,500 direct employed workers, and has been fighting to organise many of the 4,000 outsourced at Cerrejón, Latin America’s largest coal mine.

As prior ICEM reports indicated, organising efforts were countered with harassment and persecution by contractors, while Carbones del Cerrejón management refused to intervene.

This latest fatal accident underlines the urgent need for free trade unions among all the contractors of Cerrejón in order to end unsafe working conditions. Carbones del Cerrejón, and its owners Xstrata, AngloAmerican, and BHP Billiton, cannot continue to turn a blind eye to anti-union contractors.

Wednesday’s accident occurred at 19h50, when a high platform holding 16 workers collapsed and fell. Contract employees of Conconcreto and Ticom were carrying out repair work in one of two coal storage silos in the massive facility’s crushing plant.

Three workers died at the scene. While 12 of the 16 were injured and taken to hospital, one died en-route. The bodies of the three dead workers could not be recovered until late into the night.

Seven of the hospitalized workers have since been discharged, and the others are all in stable condition.

Sintracarbón, as well as communicating shock and sadness, moved quickly to demand a full inquiry into the accident, with a view to fully understanding its causes, and establishing a strict safety policy throughout the Cerrejón operations. The company has responded, with external investigators due to release findings in two weeks.

Production at Cerrejón reached 30.5 million tonnes in 2009, and is expected to reach 40 million tonnes by 2011.

http://www.icem.org/en/78-ICEM-InBrief/3940-Contract-Workers-Killed-at-Colombia’s-Cerrejón-Mine-Renewing-Cry-for-Unionisation

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Cerrejón mine, Colombia

Murder in the Coal Fields.
By Cray, Charlie
Publication: Multinational Monitor
Date: Sunday, April 1 2001

YEAR AFTER Alabama-based Drummond Corporation closed most of its U.S. coal mines and began operating new mines in Colombia, two leaders of the local mine workers' union were assassinated.

On March 12, Balmore Locarno and Jaime Orcasitas, president and vice president of the mine workers' union at Drummond's El Cerrejon mine in Columbia, were hauled off a company-chartered bus while on their way to work and shot execution-style. The assassinations were carried out in front of the unionists' colleagues by gunmen thought to be affiliated with the right-wing paramilitary group, Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

The mine's 1,200 workers immediately halted production in protest. While the parent company says it is not conducting its own investigation, Drummond Ltd. of Colombia called upon "the competent organizations and institutions to initiate the pertinent investigations."

The Confederation of Colombian Workers and the country's largest national union group, CUT, have both called for an increase in international monitoring of Colombia.

"Unless and until the authorities make a real effort to investigate these crimes, and bring them to an end, the suspicion must remain that the gunmen are not acting alone," says Fred Higgs, the general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

"When Drummond chose to switch many of its operations to Colombia, it did so knowing that country's hostile political climate and egregious human rights violations," United Mine Workers of America Vice President Jerry Jones says.

More:
http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/781074-1.html