Labor leaders to visit Colombia as Bush presses for vote

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.

"I don't want to prejudge the outcome of the trip, but we're not expecting any major shifts," Lee said. "We're not teetering on the edge of changing our position."

Still, after years of ignoring labor's concerns about trade agreements, the Bush administration has been seeking AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's advice on how to win approval of the Colombian agreement, Lee said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior Bush administration officials have been taking U.S. lawmakers to Colombia in the hopes of building support.

A coalition of more than 700 U.S. companies, trade associations and agricultural groups also sent a letter to members of Congress on Thursday asking for approval of the U.S.-Colombia agreement this year.

However, Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and staunch foe of trade agreements, told reporters on Thursday he was confident Congress would not approve the pact.

Lee said she believed the Bush administration would eventually realize there was not enough support to pass the agreement and drop its push for a vote.

(Editing by David Wiessler)