Global Day of Action - Greater Boston

With Condoleezza Rice in Colombia promoting a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Boston activists hosted a Colombian mine workers union representative to discuss the same topic. Sintraminergética's Orlando Acosta made it very clear that unionists don't want a free trade agreement. Instead they see it as something that will further open up their country to powerful transnational corporations, like Alabama-based Drummond Company.

At the same time, as an audience member at the 1/26/08 event pointed out, Colombia agricultural goods will be opened up to competition for US government subsidized produce, including staples like rice. This kind of economic subversion of Colombian sovereignty coupled with the ongoing killing of trade unionists spurred a march to the Colombian consulate. Following a stirring speech by Gabe Camacho in solidarity with Colombian workers, activists placed a coffin at the doors of the consular building to symbolize the more than 3,000 Colombian unionists killed in recent years.

Longer term actions are planned by the events sponsoring groups to educate US policymakers about the negative impacts of an FTA with Colombia. Similarly, North Shore Labor Council's Jeff Crosby outlined a modest but effective worker-to-worker approach to solidarity that would protect the lives of unionists there while educating workers in the US about their shared interests with workers around the world.