Colombia - Collective pact used to bust trade union at Ecopetrol

«Agreement 01 of 1977» is the name of a benefits plan for non-unionised workers at Ecopetrol that has been in place for 37 years. It is, in fact, the equivalent of a collective pact, in the sense that it is a benefits scheme that differs from that established under the collective agreement.

«I call it a de facto pact, as it has never been negotiated with the workers and it does not comply with the procedures set out by the Substantive Labour Code,» says Edwin Palma, vice president of USO. «It is an agreement drawn up by Ecopetrol’s Board of Directors, setting more beneficial labour conditions for workers who do not unionise. That’s why USO’s membership within Ecopetrol has not grown. Trade union members account for less than a third of the total workforce. The only reason we are strong now is because around 20,000 of the 30,000 subcontracted workers within Ecopetrol’s various subsidiaries are currently affiliated to the USO.»

Agreement 01 covers over 6,000 workers whilst the collective agreement only covers around 3,000. «But the strange thing is that these 6,000 workers are supposedly supervisory, managerial and executive employees, meaning that they account for double the number of operational workers, which is absurd,» adds Palma.

As a rule, every time there is a collective bargaining round with the USO, the benefits in the Agreement are changed. The company includes what is negotiated with the USO in the Agreement, sometimes improving on it so that the terms are better than those in the collective agreement. The Agreement, for example, contains a number of more attractive benefits, such as courses abroad, study grants or subsidies, etc. «It is a tool that seriously affects the unionisation rate at Ecopetrol,» adds the union leader.

In light of this, the national executive of the USO decided, this year, to take legal action to put an end to Agreement 01 and thus guarantee freedom of association at Ecopetrol. To be able to exercise this right, the union needs to unionise over a third of the workers.

The challenge is to win over the 6,000 non-unionised workers who, under the guise of being supervisory and managerial employees, are seeing their labour rights being undermined on many levels, suffering abuses such as harassment and an ever-increasing workload, etc. «We have been supporting these workers over the last four months and are achieving high membership rates,» concludes Palma Egea. The USO, he adds, is also interested in promoting lawsuits against two other oil industry companies with collective pacts: Terpel and Wadford, both with USO members.

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