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Solidarity with unions in Honduras

Issue date
Solidarity with Honduras

Speech by Sally Hunt

14 October 2009

The TUC, representing workers in Britain and in particular the 6.2 million members of our 59 affiliated trade unions, calls for the restoration of the elected President of Honduras, and an end to the military coup.

We believe that as well as being a disaster for the people of Honduras, the coup could destabilise the whole region.

But I want to concentrate on the situation facing workers and their unions.

We stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in the trade union movement of Honduras, who were facing violence and poverty even before the coup, but who tell us that things have got much much worse since the current regime seized power.

Of the twenty or so people actually killed since the coup - on top of the hundreds injured and the thousands arrested - twelve were trade unionists, showing that once again - as we have seen in Colombia and elsewhere - trade unions are the first to be targeted and the first to resist.

Those unions - the CUTH, the CTH and the CGT - are asking the international community and the global trade union movement for support.

They urgently need money to pay for medical treatment for the injuries suffered by demonstrators. You can donate to TUC Aid's appeal for Honduras through the TUC website.

They want our Government to refuse aid to Honduras and refuse to send observers to the fake elections being planned for November.

And they want the European Union to suspend the preferential trade agreement they have with Honduras, called GSP plus.

The TUC has already written to the European Trade Commissioner - Baroness Ashton - asking her to do just that. We wrote on 13 July. She replied on 22 September - no undue urgency there then!

She wrote that she shared our concerns, but would be taking no action, because, and I quote, 'we have not yet received any indication that the situation is yet affecting the implementation of the Conventions linked to GSP+.'

The rules for GSP plus refer to international conventions on the environment, human rights and labour standards. They include:

  • the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights;
  • the Convention against Torture;
  • the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women; and
  • the ILO core conventions including freedom of association.

'We have not yet received any indication that the situation is yet affecting the implementation of the Conventions linked to GSP+.'

On Monday, the International Trade Union Confederation - which carried a resolution of solidarity with trade unions in Honduras last week at its General Council - published an interview with one of the leaders of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup. He said:

'There have been numerous cases of physical and psychological torture.

'A photo reporter, ... Delmer Membreno, was abducted and tortured.

'A teacher active in the trade union was raped by four policemen. ...

'Augustina Flores Lopez, a member of the Civic Council of Indigenous Peoples' Organisations ... was severely beaten by the police, in public, in front of the media. Images of the beating were recorded ... but ... she is still in prison, on charges of 'sedition and terrorism'.'

Later, he reports that a bomb exploded in the head office of the beverage industry union, and that it only failed to murder its targets because they had left the office early to go to the funeral of another trade union leader who had been assassinated!

So, Commissioner Ashton writes, 'we have not yet received any indication that the situation is yet affecting the implementation of the Conventions linked to GSP+.'

How complacent is it that the European Commission - who are telling us that a free trade agreement with Colombia - who also have GSP+ status - will help them to improve human rights there, can't accept that a brutal, misogynistic anti-trade union military coup is breaching human and trade union rights.

The TUC is therefore calling on the British Government to press the European Union to suspend its preferential trade deal with Honduras immediately.

Because it's not on to give special favours to bloody dictators.

Because we've got to protest in every way we can against such violence.

And because our sisters and brothers in Honduras are asking us to help.

Sally Hunt
TUC International Spokesperson and UCU General Secretary
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