Colombian trade unions take to the streets today in a mass show of support for the labour reform bill proposed by the progressive administration of President Gustavo Petro, who heads the first trade union-backed government in Colombian history. It comes as Congress prepares to vote on the reform, which has encountered strong opposition since it was first submitted in 2022.
A negative vote against the reform is expected to take place today after eight members of the 14-person senate committee, and who belong to opposition parties, announced their intentions to reject it. This would further cast into doubt the future of a bill that seeks to drastically improve worker rights and conditions. Last week, Petro called for a national referendum to seek public approval for the labour and healthcare reforms, two of his government’s flagship proposals that are yet to be passed into law.
Colombia’s three main trade union federations, the CUT, CGT and CTC, will participate in the mobilisations. In a statement, the CUT said that ‘political and economic elites, who represent technocratic neoliberalism and the extreme right … continue attacking the rights of workers and the public’.
Other groups supporting the reform include the FECODE teacher federation, Colombia’s largest single-sector trade union organisation. Some city councils have threatened to withhold pay from any public teachers who join the mobilisations. In response, FECODE stated that teacher salaries are the responsibility of national government rather than local authorities. Other employers have also reportedly sought to prevent staff from joining the rallies.
Key areas that the labour reform seeks to address include the highly precarious nature of employment for millions of people, as well as regulating the vast informal sector that accounts for around half the national workforce who are dangerously exposed to mishaps such as illness, unemployment or wider crises like the pandemic. The reform also seeks to end discrimination in the workplace, increase overtime pay for night and weekend work, provide stable contracts for gig economy workers and reduce outsourcing.
Colombia has some of the weakest labour rights in the world, the product of decades of hard-right economic policy and anti-union violence that has weakened organised labour movements. Calling on affiliated members to join the mobilisations, the CUT said that ‘we must defend in the streets the reforms that aim to improve living conditions for the majority.’