CWA 1180 - Solidarity Works

Same struggles, different countries
Local 1180 activists travel to Colombia and the U.K.

February 2004

In our increasingly globalized economy, the fate of 1180 members is tied not just to other union members in the United States, but to workers throughout the world. In January, three local 1180 members traveled abroad with two separate international labor delegations.

Local 1180 Communications Director (and webmaster) Dorothee Benz was part of a fact-finding delegating investigating human rights abuses of Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. The delegation's preliminary report found significant evidence that Coke management either condones or actually facilitates the murder, torture, terrorization and harassment of its workers by right-wing paramilitaries. (Click here for the press release on the report.)

The delegation was led by New York City Council Member Hiram Monserrate, from Queens, and included community leaders as well as union activists.

In the city of Cali, the delegation met with SINTRAEMCALI, the municipal workers' union that is fighting privatization of their public utilities. You can read about their struggle here. The day the delegation met with SINTRAEMCALI, the union's president, Luis Hernandez, happened to be wearing a shirt from the British public-sector union UNISON ("keep public services public" the shirt said), at the very moment that 1180 Second Vice President Bill Henning and Executive Board member Clarona Williams were meeting with UNISON workers in England. The coincidence merely underscored how intertwined all of our struggles are.

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