Labor leaders to visit Colombia as Bush presses for vote

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. labor leaders opposed to a free trade deal with Colombia will visit that country next week to press for stronger government action to stop killings of trade unionists before Congress votes on the pact.

"Forty union leaders were murdered in Colombia last year," AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson said in a statement announcing the February 11-13 trip. "Colombia must address this life-and-death crisis effectively before we can even begin discussion of a trade agreement."

The 10.5 million-member AFL-CIO is the United States' largest labor organization and one the Democratic party's biggest constituent groups. Its strong opposition to the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement is thwarting White House efforts to win approval of the pact.

Chavez-Thompson and other union leaders will meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Attorney General Mario Iguaran to urge them to do more to stop violence against trade unionists and put the guilty parties in jail.

They also will meet with Colombian labor leaders and take part in a vigil to commemorate "the thousands of trade unionists who have been killed during the last two decades of violence in Colombia," the labor group said

Uribe says his administration takes labor violence seriously, as shown by a 75 percent drop in the number of trade unionists murdered each year since he took office in 2002.

The Colombian government has also tripled spending on protection for unionists, human rights activists and other at-risk individuals and established a special unit to prosecute crimes against trade unionists.

Thea Lee, AFL-CIO policy director, said she did not expect next week's trip to begin a dialogue that could lead to approval of the free trade pact.