Movimiento Sindical, Indígena y Campesino Guatemalteco - MSICG - MSICG INSISTS ON REQUESTING AN COMMISSION OF INQUIRY FOR GUATEMALA For several years now, MSICG has denounced before the International Labor Organization –ILO-‘s Control Organs, the grave situation that workers who pretend to make use of their union an labor rights in Guatemala face, which go from firing workers that try to unionize or demand compliance with some right established by law, the making of antiunion lists, to threats, physical attacks and murder of unionists and defenders of union rights. Likewise, MSICG has submitted clear evidence before ILO’s control organs that since 1954 persists a failed judicial and labor administration system, and a generalized absence of the State to enforce labor and union rights, especially those contained on ILO’s Agreements 87 and 98, more than 60 years after their ratification. As a product of the complaints and remarks that MSICG presented before ILO on the years 2010 and 2011, the Committee of Experts –CEACR- signaled, for the first time in the country’s history, the case against the State of Guatemala with a DOUBLE FOOT NOTE WITH SPECIAL CALLING and on the year 2011 with the presence of MSICG’s delegates at ILO’s Conference, held in Geneva, Switzerland, ILO’s Conference committee on the Application of Standards –ICCCR- pointed it out WITH A SPECIAL PARAGRAPH. Both signaling are the gravest that these control organs can issue, and were used as basis in the year 2012 for a group of workers from several countries represented at the International Labor Conference to present before the Administration Council the request for an COMMISSION OF INQUIRY to be installed to review the union situation in Guatemala. The Commission of inquiry is the strongest support mechanism that the international community can grant a State, consisting on the designation of three international personalities of the highest level that verify if the State effectively complies with respecting and enforcing union freedom. At the end of their work, the Commission issues recommendations that, if not accepted or complied with by the State, are known by the International Court of Justice, whose resolution is mandatory and cannot be appealed. The decision on the Adequacy of the Commission of inquiry for the State of Guatemala had to be taken by ILO’s Governing Body on November 2012; however, in this occasion, the Government of Guatemala asked that this should be discarded and/or put on hold because a Memorandum of Agreement had been signed with the following organizations: CACIF, CGTG, CUSG, FENASSEP, FENASEP, FENASTEG, GESTRAS, FETRACUR, SNTSG, STEG, y UNSITRAGUA, to set in motion ILO’s Technical Cooperation Frame: Decent Labor Program for the Republic of Guatemala 2012-2015. The aforementioned Memorandum is attached. As a product of this debate, the Governing Body postponed the taking of its decision regarding the installation of the Commission of inquiry for its meeting, to be held on March 2013, and consulted MSICG on its stance regarding the Memorandum and the situation of the application of Agreement 87 in Guatemala Through a release dated February 14th 2013, MSICG ratified to the Governing Body the graveness of the situation of unions in the country, exemplifying this with concrete cases and serious investigations; on the other side, it reminded it that in its role of main and almost exclusive plaintiff against the State of Guatemala, it did not acknowledge or validate the Memorandum signed by the Government, CACIF and the aforementioned union expressions, and that it could not be used as basis to suspend installing an Commission of inquiry to review the Guatemala case. On the other hand, MSICG ratified that these organizations mostly do not exert union freedom and have not made or submitted comments, remarks or complaints before CEACR and other control organs of ILO on violations to Agreement 87, as is the case of FENASEP, FENASSEP, FESTRAS, FETRACUR, SNTSG, STEG and in other cases, these have been aisolted on concrete cases such as the remarks presented before CEACR by CUSG on the years 1996, 2011 and 2012, the last two ones done jointly with CGTG, plus the meager two remarks presented by FENASTEG on 2002 and 2005 as it is stated on ILO’s very web page. MSICG showed the Governing Body how some organizations that signed the Memorandum are even financed directly or covertly by the State of Guatemala to promote the initiatives that are promoted by the current Government and the entrepreneurial sector, as is the case of the Agreement of Cooperation for the study, analysis and training on regulation updating on labor reforms, signed by the Labor and Social Prevision Ministry and the Mario López Larrave Union Training Center Foundation of Guatemala; through which this entity commits itself to make and present in a national forum the proposal to establish part time labor in the country. A copy of the aforementioned Agreement is attached to this release. As is stated in the aforementioned Foundation’s web site, CTC, FESEBS, FESTRAS, SNTSG, UGT, USTAC, FNL, CODECA and STEG are a part of it. In the face of MSICG’s release, and having discarded the validity of the aforementioned Memorandum as a mechanism to deny the installation of the Commission inquiry on grounds that union freedom is respected, the Governing Body was getting ready to know the Complaint against the State of Guatemala in its meeting of march 2013; however and once more going against the union freedom rights of the Guatemalan working class, the International trade union confederation –ITUC-, of which CUSG, CGTG and UNSITRAGUA are affiliates, negotiated an agreement Memorandum with the Government of Guatemala, even before the meeting of the Governing Body, through which they agree to suspend the decision to implement an Commission of inquiry so it would be known on November 2013 by the Governing Body. On the grounds of this Memorandum once more the Governing Body is forced to put its decision to meet on November 2013 on hold, and asks MSICG to make a statement regarding this issue. On a release addressed to the Governing Body on April 9th 2013, MSICG regrets the agreement signed between ITUC and the government of Guatemala, done with the same purpose with which its Guatemalan affiliates signed the agreement memorandum last October, and it highlights the possible existence of procedure violations regarding the Complaint against the State of Guatemala based on Article 26 of ILO’s Constitution, since the State of Guatemala was granted different, more favorable conditions than those given to other States that have been submitted to an Inquiry Commission procedure, and thus we assume that the Government has also successfully obtained international impunity regarding such an important issue, with the help of all the different actors mentioned before. MSICG highlighted that ITUC’s general consultant’s status within ILO under no circumstance grants it the faculty to assume the quality of principal of any of ILO’s member states, least of all to impose its affiliates as dialogue members of cases that it has not set, argued or defended before ILO’s control organs. MSICG manifested to ILO’s Governing Body that ITUC has acted in excess of the attributions that the valid regulations and its own status as general consultant NGO grant it, and insists that the representation of the workers’ group corresponds to the principals that hold such a quality, not for reason of being or not affiliated to a determined international organization, and therefore, the liberties assumed by Luc Cortebeeck as President of the Group of Workers at the Administration Council when signing an agreement with the government of Guatemala to prevent a decision to be taken regarding the installation of commission of inquiry went against the most basic guarantees of union freedom and against the integrity of the States that form ILO as well as other sectors. MSICG also highlighted that it’s particularly concerning that the tight to union freedom of the Guatemalan working class is instrumentalized and attempted to deny it with the intention of financing old-fashioned structures and thus preventing the revitalization of the Guatemalan union movement as ITUC is doing in this case, and we remind both ITUC and the international community that it was change, and not immobility, what the companions that have given their lives under the flags of Guatemalan unionism were looking for. MSICG also pointed out how important it is that the Governing Body can come to know without further delay the Complaint presented on the base of observations and denounces of MSICG before ILO’s control organs, specially taking into account that in the case of the State of Guatemala, all mechanisms of cooperation have been used unsuccessfully by ILO to achieve full compliance with Agreement 87. This is how, once more, MSICG ratifies that it will continue to implement all national and international actions necessary to achieve full respect of union freedom in Guatemala and that its exercise will effectively be a tool of transformation, construction of democracy and guarantee of full access to dignity, well-being and development for the majority of the population. Guatemala, June 4th, 2013. POLITICAL COUNCIL GUATEMALAN UNION, INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT MOVEMENT MSICG
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:30:12 +0000
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