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Colombia: trade union leader faces arbitrary sanction

September 21, 2017
PSI is calling on all affiliates to join the LabourStart campaign in support of Carlos E. Castañeda Ravelo who is facing a new arbitrary sanction for exercising the right to freedom of association.

Join the LabourStart campaign and send your protest e-mail, or download the model letter (in Spanish).

Carlos E. Castañeda Ravelo is the president of the National Unitary Union of State Workers (SUNET), which represents more than 6600 members. SUNET is a PSI affiliate and a member of the Bogota-Cundinamarca branch of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia (CUT).

In 2006, Carlos was dismissed and disqualified for 10 years from holding public office for having expressed - in exercise of the right to freedom of association - his support for a candidate of the Polo Democrático Alternativo Party to the Senate of the Republic.

Colombia has ratified ILO Convention 151, Article 9 of which states:

“Public employees shall have, as other workers, the civil and political rights which are essential for the normal exercise of freedom of association, subject only to the obligations arising from their status and the nature of their functions.”

However, at the Labor Court of the Circuit of Bogotá, the order of dismissal is still pending, in compliance with the order of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation.
Carlos E. Castañeda has asked the new Attorney General of the Nation, Fernando Carrillo Florez, to review the sanction against him and declare the cancellation of the arbitrary sanction, for which the reason has not been determined.

In view of the above PSI is asking Attorney Fernando Carrillo Florez to carefully review the case of Castañeda and to reverse entirely the decision of this unjust and disproportionate sanction, or at least declare it cancelled due to the end of the limitation period.

Join the LabourStart campaign and send your protest e-mail, or download the model letter (in Spanish).

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