Case No 2413 (Guatemala) - Complaint date: 14-MAR-05

The Trade Union of Workers of Guatemala (UNSITRAGUA)

Allegations

The complainant organization alleges that the forces of law and order violently repressed trade union demonstrations (accompanied by associations of peasants and other organizations defending human rights) in March 2005, held to protest the signing of a free trade agreement, as a result of which four workers died (including a peasant worker leader) and a further 11 were injured, and that arrest warrants were issued for trade union leaders, and that the coordinator of the UNSITRAGUA Commission and Legal Office was prevented from leaving the country, and the President of the Republic used the media to refer in disrespectful terms to trade union leaders. In addition, the complainant organization alleges anti-union dismissals at the Ingenio Magdalena S.A., finca El Cobano (alleging also that the authorities of this undertaking appealed against the decision granting legal personality to the enterprise’s trade union and that the administrative authority decided the appeal in favour of the enterprise in an irregular manner), in the municipality of El Tumbador, San Marcos, in the municipality of San Juan Chamelco, department of Alta Verapaz, and in the San Vicente Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Lastly, the complainant organization alleges the closure of the undertaking Bocadelli S.A., following the submission of a draft collective agreement on working conditions by the enterprise’s trade union

Case No 2413 (Guatemala) - Complaint date: 14-MAR-05

The Trade Union of Workers of Guatemala (UNSITRAGUA)

Allegations

Examination Actions