SINALTRAINAL

Javier Correa, President of the National Union of Food Industry Workers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos, SINALTRAINAL), received a death threat, and the son of regional SINALTRAINAL leader Jose Domingo Florez was abducted and beaten. There are fears that the lives of members of SINALTRAINAL are in danger.

At about 4pm on 27th September 2007, ANDRES DAMIAN FLOREZ
RODRIGUEZ (son of JOSE DOMINGO FLOREZ, a worker at a Coca-Cola bottli ng plant and a leader of the trade union SINALTRAINAL) was returning from college to his home at No 204-102, 38th Avenue in the Andes barrio of Floridablanca in Santander when he was accosted by three individuals from a black van, they were carrying arms, communications radios and were wearing balaclavas. The three men took Andres in the van by force, threw him on the vehicle floor and started hitting him.

On December 6, 1928, in the municipal plaza of Ciénaga Magdalena, around 3000 men and women were assassinated for demanding that the U.S. transnational corporation, United Fruit Company, resolve the demands of the petitions presented to them by the union. On that day, the Colombian army, commanded by General Carlos Cortés Vargas, fired their arms against the masses of people to liquidate the workers’ protest.

On 14 December 2006, in the city of Barranquilla, a communiqué was left at the residence of Euripides Yance, a Coca-Cola worker and member of the National Committee of SINALTRAINAL. The communiqué is entitled BLACK EAGLES [AGUILAS NEGRAS] and threatens various student, social and trade union leaders, giving them a week to leave the city. Amongst them are members and leaders of SINALTRAINAL and workers at Coca-Cola EURIPIDES YANCE, LIMBERTO CARRANZA, and CAMPO QUINTERO.