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Colombia - Compensation & Benefit Legislation

CAPITAL

Bogota

 

CLIMATE

Tropical along the coast and the eastern plains but cooler in highlands.

 

LANGUAGES

Castillian Spanish / Latin American Spanish.

 

LEGAL SYSTEM

Legal system based on Spanish law. A new criminal code, which is modeled after US procedures was enacted in 1992-93. Accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction (with reservations).

 

CURRENCY

Colombian Pesos (1 USD = 2,347.90 COP as of April 15, 2002)

 

COLOMBIA - COST-OF-LIVING

ERI's Relocation Assessor is a recommended source for cost-of-living data.

 

COLOMBIA - EMBASSY/CONSULATES

U. S. Embassy at Bogota

Carrera 45 #22D-45

Bogota - D.C., Colombia

Telephone: [57] (1) 315-0811

Fax: [57] (1) 315-2197

http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/co1/

 

Embassy of Colombia at Washington D.C.

2118 Leroy Place N.W.

Washington D.C. 20008

Telephone: (202) 387-8338

Fax: (202) 232-8643

Email: emwas@columbiaemb.org

http://www.colombiaemb.org/

 

COLOMBIA - HOLIDAYS

 

COLOMBIA - LEAVE

Maternity Leave: 12 weeks – 100% of pay (paid by social security).

 

COLOMBIA - MINIMUM AGE

The Constitution prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 in most jobs, and the Labor Code prohibits the granting of work permits to children under 18.

 

A 1989 decree established the Minors Code and prohibited the employment of children under age 12. It also required exceptional conditions and the express authorization of the Labor Ministry to employ children between the ages of 12 and 17. Children under age 14 are prohibited from working, with the exception that those ages 12 and 13 may perform light work with the permission of their parents and appropriate labor authorities.

 

Children ages 12 and 13 may work a maximum of 4 hours a day, children ages 14 and 15 may work a maximum of 6 hours a day, and children ages 16 and 17 may work a maximum of 8 hours a day. All child workers are prohibited from working at night, or performing work where there is a risk of bodily harm or exposure to excessive heat, cold, or noise. Children are prohibited from working in a number of specific occupations, including mining and construction.

 

(Section 6.d. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Columbia – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

 

COLOMBIA - MINIMUM REMUNERATION

The monthly minimum wage is 286,000 pesos (approximately $125).

 

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Columbia – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)

 

COLOMBIA - REMUNERATION

ERI's Geographic and Salary Assessors are recommended sources for international remuneration covering 189 countries.

 

COLOMBIA - REPORT OF HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES (2001, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)

Section 6 Worker Rights

 

a. The Right of Association

 

The Constitution provides for the right to organize unions, except for members of the armed forces, police, and persons executing "essential public services" as defined by law. In practice, violence against union members and antiunion discrimination are obstacles to joining unions and engaging in trade union activities. Labor leaders around the country continue to be targets of attacks by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and narcotics traffickers. Union leaders contend that perpetrators of violence against workers, particularly members of paramilitary groups, operate with virtual impunity.

 

The heavily amended 1948 Labor Code provides for automatic recognition of unions that obtain 25 signatures from potential members and comply with a simple registration process. However, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has received reports that this process is slow and sometimes takes years. The law penalizes interference with freedom of association and allows unions to determine freely their internal rules, elect officials, and manage activities. The law also forbids the dissolution of trade unions by administrative fiat. Law 584, which the President approved in 1999, limits government interference in a union's right to free association in accordance with recommendations made by the ILO Direct Contacts Mission. However, the law includes a provision authorizing Ministry of Labor officials to compel trade unions to provide interested third parties with relevant information on their work, including books, registers, plans, and other documents. The ILO Committee of Experts considers this amendmento be inconsistent with freedom of association, since it believes an administrative authority only should conduct investigations when there are reasonable grounds to believe that an offense has been committed.

 

According to the National Labor College ("Escuela Nacional Sindical", or ENS), a Medellin-based NGO which collects, studies, and consolidates information on organized labor in the country, as of October, there were 2,482 registered unions with 860,281 affiliates. These figures are significantly lower than the 5,470 unions and 1,054,400 affiliates reported by the Ministry of Labor in 1997. Although specific statistics for the year are not available, a continuing downward trend is discernable. Only 4.5 percent of the work force of approximately 19 million is unionized. According to the CCJ, 89 percent of these workers are in the public sector. Government and labor sources estimate that between 87 and 95 percent of unions are affiliated with 1 of 3 confederations: The center-left United Workers' Central (CUT), with which 45 to 50 percent of unions are affiliated; the Social Christian Colombian Democratic Workers' Confederation (CGTD), with which approximately 30 percent of unions are affiliated; and the Liberal Party-affiliated Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC), with which 12 to 15 percent of unions are affiliated.

 

The Constitution provides for the right to strike, except for members of the armed forces, police, and persons executing essential public services as defined by law.

 

Labor leaders nationwide continue to be targeted for attacks by paramilitaries, guerrillas, and narcotics traffickers. According to the U.N., the ILO, and trade union leaders, the vast majority of killings and attacks on labor leaders are committed by paramilitaries. According to the ENS, a total of 184 union activists were killed during the year. The ENS also reported that 23 unionists survived attempts on their lives, 203 were threatened with death, 37 were kidnaped, 12 disappeared, and 56 were forcibly displaced. Nearly 1,600 union members have been murdered since 1991, and unions face widespread societal hostility because some observers see them as "subversive."

 

On January 22, an alleged paramilitary murdered Jose Luis Guete Montero, president of the National Union of Industrial and Agricultural Workers (SINALTRAINAGRO). An investigation was opened but had not made any significant progress by year's end. In March Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita, local president and vice president of miners' union SINTRAMINERGETICA at Drummond Corporation's La Loma coal mine in the northeastern department of Cesar, were abducted from their company bus and killed. In October presumed paramilitaries abducted Locarno's replacement as union president, Gustavo Soler, and then tortured and killed him.

 

In April Ricardo Orozco, vice president of the Hospital Workers Union was shot and killed near Barranquilla. Orozco's name had appeared on a list of union activists targeted by paramilitaries.

 

On June 21, Oscar Dario Soto Polo, chairman of the National Beverage Workers Union (SINALTRAINBEC) and a member of the CUT national committee, was killed in broad daylight while walking his 8-year-old daughter home from school. Soto's death and other murders, kidnapings, and incidents of harassment of beverage industry workers led the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund to file suit in July in a U.S. district court on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian National Food Industry Workers Union, against Coca-Coca and two affiliated Colombian bottlers. The suit alleges that the company has colluded with paramilitaries to harass, intimidate, kidnap, and kill union leaders over the past 10 years. Coca-Cola and its affiliated bottlers strongly deny the accusations.

 

On July 6, Hernando Hernandez Pardo, president of the Oil Workers Trade Union (USO), was reported barely to have escaped an attempt on his life by alleged paramilitaries in Barrancabermeja.

 

On November 30, the AUC kidnaped Aury Sara Marrugo, president of the Cartagena chapter of the USO, and his bodyguard. On December 5, their bodies were found near Cartagena. AUC political head Carlos Castano acknowledged kidnaping and executing Sara, who, Castano claimed, had confessed to being the commander of a local ELN front.

 

As of March, the Government had detained eight persons in connection with the December 2000 attempt to kill public employee union president Wilson Borja, an outspoken critic of paramilitary leader Carlos Castano and prominent advocate of the Government's negotiations with the ELN. In February the authorities arrested active duty police captain Carlos Gomez. The Inspector General's office alleged that Gomez had links to paramilitaries. Other detainees include an active duty army major, two retired members of the military, and four suspected paramilitaries. In December in response to new, credible death threats, Borja left the country.

 

Prosecutors have outstanding warrants for the arrest of paramilitary members Temilda Rosa Martinez and Eduardo Manrique Morales for the 1999 killing of Julio Alfonso Poveda, a CUT founder. In December 2000, the Prosecutor General's office arraigned three hired killers alleged to have killed CUT vice president Jorge Ortega in 1998.

 

There is still no information in the 1999 bombings of both the Association of Rural Land Users in Sincelejo, Sucre Department, and the Medellin office of the USO, where a bomb was defused. According to the ENS, there have been 14 bombing attempts against union offices in the last 4 years.

 

One of the 25 special human rights investigative subunits of the Prosecutor General's office is responsible for investigating cases of human rights violations against trade unionists, and there was a significant increase in the legal budget for judicial employees in 2000 that was maintained during the year. On the whole, government identification of perpetrators of crimes against trade union members has been slow, a situation which the ILO Special Representative's June report noted is aggravated by the difficulties faced by the office of the Inspector General and the judiciary in carrying out their inquiries and offering adequate assurances of protection so that witnesses are willing to come forward.

 

In February 2000, an ILO Direct Contacts Mission visited the country to examine alleged abuses of workers' rights to life, free association, and collective bargaining. In June 2000, the Mission presented a report to the Governing Body's Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) which noted that the Government was "making sincere efforts" to address these problems. However, the report expressed concern over the number of murders, kidnapings, death threats, and other violent assaults on trade union leaders and unionized workers and stated that murders of trade union leaders and unionized workers were a "regular" occurrence. In response, the ILO committee on free association recommended an urgent inquiry into the participation of public officials in the creation of self-defense or paramilitary groups, an increase in government budgetary allocations to protect trade union officials, and an increase in efforts to combat impunity.

 

To monitor compliance with its recommendations, the ILO appointed Rafael Albuquerque, former Minster of Labor of the Dominican Republic, as ILO Special Representative to the country. Albuquerque began his work in October 2000 and presented a report to the ILO Administrative Committee in June. His report noted apparent government progress in combating paramilitarism; however, he also noted that the Government had been unable to stem effectively the violence affecting the trade union movement. Albuquerque also commented that in many departments of the country where there was little or no presence of the security forces, paramilitary groups continue to dismantle trade unions by threatening the members of their executive committees.

 

In 1999 the Government developed the Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Trade Union Leaders to protect trade unionists from violence. As of December, the program had provided protection for 158 trade union premises and 1,033 leaders and activists. These individuals are provided with bulletproof vests, bodyguards, and in some cases vehicles. To pay for these expanded measures, the Government increased its budget for protective measures by over 400 percent. In May Claudia Caceres, director of the protection program, stated that her office was overwhelmed by the increase in its caseload. The number of cases has grown from 300 in 1999 to over 2,300 cases in December. Trade unionists complain that even these increased measures are insufficient to protect adequately the large number of trade unionists who are threatened, and they continued to press for more efforts to break the impunity with which most of these acts are committed.

 

Based on government commitments to combat paramilitarism, protect union members, and overcome impunity, the ILO decided in June not to send a formal Commission of Inquiry to the country. Instead, the ILO decided that its satellite office in the country should remain open and that a technical commission should be formed to assist the country in complying with recommendations made in the Special Representative's June report. The recommendations found in the June report focus on improving protective measures for union members, combating impunity, and encouraging freedom of association.

 

Before staging a legal strike, unions first must negotiate directly with management and, if no agreement results, accept mediation. The Labor Code prohibits the use of strike breakers. Legislation that prohibits all public employees from striking is still in effect, although it often is overlooked. By law, public employees must accept binding arbitration if mediation fails; however, in practice, public service unions decide by membership vote whether or not to seek arbitration.

 

In March state workers from the national, departmental, and municipal governments staged a 24-hour general strike to protest state sector layoffs and proposed reforms to the national pension system. In May teachers and health care workers, fearing reductions in their respective budgets, went on strike to protest proposed legislation that would have changed how public money is distributed to departments and municipalities. In June public sector workers staged a 48-hour strike to protest the Government's program of structural reforms. Workers at the Red Cross and the Social Security Institute also went on strike to protest proposed changes in their respective institutions. On November 1, members of the CUT, the CGTD, and the CTC staged a 24-hour strike to protest the Government's economic and social policies, high unemployment, and violence against labor leaders and human rights activists. Strike organizers stated that some 500,000 government workers took part in the action. The longest strike of the year took place from December 18, 2000, to February 28, at the factories of beverage manufacturer Bavaria, where over 6,300 employees walked out to protest stalled contract negotiations.

 

In August thousands of Bogota cab and bus drivers went on strike to protest restrictions on the circulation of public transportation vehicles; 20 persons were injured in the demonstrations. The strike paralyzed the capital for several days before the mayor and transportation unions negotiated a solution.

 

The Government still has not addressed a number of ILO criticisms of the Labor Code. The ILO had complained about the following provisions of the law: The requirement that government officials be present at assemblies convened to vote on a strike call; the legality of firing union organizers from jobs in their trades once 6 months have passed following a strike or dispute; the requirement that contenders for trade union offices must belong to the occupation that their union represents; the prohibition of strikes in a wide range of public services that are not necessarily essential; various restrictions on the right to strike; the power of the Minister of Labor and the President to intervene in disputes through compulsory arbitration when a strike is declared illegal; and the power to dismiss trade union officers involved in an unlawful strike. The ILO's June report noted the Government's continuing failure to address these criticisms.

 

Unions are free to join international confederations without government restrictions and do so in practice.

 

b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

 

The Constitution protects the right of workers to organize and engage in collective bargaining. Workers in large firms and public services have been most successful in organizing, but these employees represent only a small percentage of the workforce. High unemployment, a large informal economic sector, traditional antiunion attitudes, and weak union organization and leadership limit workers' bargaining power in all sectors. A requirement that trade unions must represent a majority of workers in each company as a condition for representing them in sectoral agreements further weakens workers' bargaining power.

 

The law forbids antiunion discrimination and the obstruction of free association. However, according to union leaders, both discrimination and obstruction of free association occur frequently. Government labor inspectors theoretically enforce these provisions; however, there are only 271 labor inspectors to cover 1,097 municipalities and more than 300,000 companies. The inspection apparatus is therefore weak. Furthermore, labor inspectors often lack basic equipment, including vehicles. Guerrillas sometimes deter labor inspectors from performing their duties by declaring them military targets. In some cases paramilitaries have threatened unionists with killing if they do not renounce their collective bargaining agreements and carried out those threats.

 

The Labor Code calls for fines to be levied for restricting freedom of association.

 

Collective pacts--agreements between individual workers and their employers--are not subject to collective bargaining and typically are used by employers to obstruct labor organization. Although employers must register collective pacts with the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry does not exercise any oversight or control over them.

 

The Labor Code also eliminates mandatory mediation in private labor-management disputes and extends the grace period before the Government can intervene in a conflict. Federations and confederations may assist affiliate unions in collective bargaining.

 

Labor law applies in the country's 15 free trade zones (FTZ's), but its standards often are not enforced in these zones. Public employee unions have won collective bargaining agreements in the FTZ's of Barranquilla, Buenaventura, Cartagena, and Santa Marta, but the garment manufacturing enterprises in Medellin and Risaralda, which have the largest number of employees, are not organized.

 

c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

 

The Constitution forbids slavery and any form of forced or compulsory labor, and this prohibition generally is respected in practice in the formal sector; however, women and girls are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

 

Paramilitaries and guerrillas forcibly conscripted indigenous people. There were some reports that guerrillas use forced labor.

 

The law prohibits forced or bonded labor by children; however, the Government does not have the resources to enforce this prohibition effectively. Although there were no known instances of forced child labor in the formal economy, several thousand children were forced to serve as paramilitary or guerrilla combatants or to work as prostitutes or coca pickers, and trafficking in girls is a problem. According to Save the Children, nearly 325,000 children working as domestic servants are fed poorly, are paid little or nothing, and are not free to seek other employment.

 

d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment

 

The Constitution prohibits the employment of children under the age of 14 in most jobs, and the Labor Code prohibits the granting of work permits to children under 18; however, child labor remains a significant problem, particularly in the informal sector. A 1989 decree established the Minors Code and prohibited the employment of children under age 12. It also required exceptional conditions and the express authorization of the Labor Ministry to employ children between the ages of 12 and 17. Children under age 14 are prohibited from working, with the exception that those ages 12 and 13 may perform light work with the permission of their parents and appropriate labor authorities. Children ages 12 and 13 may work a maximum of 4 hours a day, children ages 14 and 15 may work a maximum of 6 hours a day, and children ages 16 and 17 may work a maximum of 8 hours a day. All child workers are prohibited from working at night, or performing work where there is a risk of bodily harm or exposure to excessive heat, cold, or noise. Children are prohibited from working in a number of specific occupations, including mining and construction; however, these requirements largely are ignored in practice, and only 5 percent of working children possess the required work permits. By allowing children ages 12 and 13 to work, even under restricted conditions, the law contravenes international standards on child labor, which set the minimum legal age for employment in developing countries at 14 years.

 

In the formal sector, child labor laws are enforced through periodic review by the Ministry of Labor and the military, which ensure compliance with mandatory service requirements. However, in the informal labor sector and rural areas, child labor continues to be a problem, particularly in agriculture and mining. Children as young as 11 work full-time in almost every aspect of the cut flower industry. Even children enrolled in school or, in some cases, those too young for school, accompany their parents to work at flower plantations at night and on weekends. In the mining sector, coal mining presents the most difficult child labor problem. Many marginal, usually family-run, mining operations employ young children as a way to boost production and income. It is estimated that between 1,200 and 2,000 children are involved. The work is dangerous and the hours are long. Younger children carry water and package coal, while those age 14 and up engage in more physically demanding labor such as carrying bags of coal. These informal mining operations are illegal. The Ministry of Labor reported that by the end of 1999 an interagency governmental committee had removed approximately 80 percent of child laborers from the informal mines and returned them to school.

 

The law prohibits the employment of minors for prostitution; however, child prostitution is a problem.

 

A Catholic Church study conducted in 1999 reported that approximately 2.7 million children work, including approximately 700,000 children who work as coca pickers. Observers note that the economic downturn might increase the number of children working, especially in rural areas. Child participation in agricultural work soars at harvest time. All child workers must receive the national minimum wage for the hours that they work. However, according to the Ministry of Labor, working children between the ages of 7 and 15 earned between 13 and 47 percent of the minimum wage. An estimated 26 percent of working children have regular access to health care; the health services of the social security system cover only 10 percent of child laborers. Approximately 25 percent are employed in potentially dangerous activities. School attendance by working children is significantly lower than for nonworking children, especially in rural areas. A 1996 study by the national Human Rights Ombudsman of child labor in Putumayo department found that 22 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 18 were full-time coca pickers. In the municipality of Orito, the figure reached 70 percent.

 

The Labor Ministry has an inspector in each of the country's 32 departments and the national capital district, responsible for certifying and conducting repeat inspections of workplaces that employ children; however, the system lacks resources and covers only 20 percent of the child labor force employed in the formal sector of the economy. The National Committee for the Eradication of Child Labor includes representatives from the Ministries of Labor, Health, Education, and Communications, as well as officials from various other government offices, unions, employer associations, and NGO's. The Government also has obtained commitments from the country's leading trade associations and unions to implement child labor eradication programs, some of which were underway at year's end. In 2000 the Government formulated a 2000-02 Action Plan which gives priority to direct intervention on behalf of domestic child workers, child miners, sexually exploited children, children in trade activities, and children in the agricultural sector. Under the Action Plan, the Government distributes funds to member organizations for child labor eradication projects. It has also designed a project to collect more reliable national data on child labor; results are expected in Spring 2002.

 

The law prohibits forced and bonded labor by children; however, the Government is unable to enforce this prohibition effectively. The ICBF estimates that paramilitary and guerrilla groups employ 6,000 children as combatants. Trafficking in girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation and child prostitution are problems.

 

e. Acceptable Conditions of Work

 

The Government sets a uniform minimum wage for workers every January to serve as a benchmark for wage bargaining. The monthly minimum wage, set by tripartite negotiations among representatives of business, organized labor, and the Government was about $125 (286,000 pesos). The minimum wage does not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. Because the minimum wage is based on the Government's target inflation rate, the minimum wage has not kept up with real inflation in the past several years. An estimated 70 percent of all workers earn wages that are insufficient to cover the costs of the Government's estimated low-income family shopping basket. An estimated 76 percent of all workers earn no more than twice the minimum wage.

 

The law provides for a standard workday of 8 hours and a 48-hour workweek, but it does not require a weekly rest period of at least 24 hours, a failing criticized by the ILO.

 

Legislation provides comprehensive protection for workers' occupational safety and health; however, these standards are poorly enforced, in part because of the small number of Labor Ministry inspectors. In general, a lack of public safety awareness, inadequate attention by unions, and lax enforcement by the Labor Ministry result in a high level of industrial accidents and unhealthy working conditions. Over 80 percent of industrial companies lack safety plans. The Social Security Institute reported over 220,000 work-related accidents during the year, resulting in 1,277 deaths. The industries most prone to worker accidents were mining, construction, and transportation. According to private professional risk management company SURATEP, work-related accidents in the country cost $3.3 billion (7.25 trillion pesos) each year, or approximately 3.7 percent of GNP. According to government statistics, over 5 million persons--many of them children--work in the informal sector and have no insurance against work-related injuries.

 

According to the Labor Code, workers have the right to withdraw from a hazardous work situation without jeopardizing continued employment. However, unorganized workers, particularly those in the agricultural sector, fear losing their jobs if they exercise their right to criticize abuses.

 

f. Trafficking in Persons

 

In July a new Criminal Code went into effect which defines trafficking in persons as a crime; however, trafficking in persons, primarily women and girls, remains a problem. Colombia is a source country for trafficking in women and girls to Europe, the United States, Asia, and other Latin American countries. The DAS reported in 2000 that the country is one of the three most common countries of origin of trafficking victims in the Western Hemisphere; in 2000 an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 Colombian trafficking victims were overseas. The majority of women trafficked for prostitution reportedly go to the Netherlands, Spain, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. A study carried out in Spain in 1999 by the Roman Catholic religious order the "Adoratrices" found that Colombian women constituted nearly half of all trafficking victims in that country. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued a report on trafficking in persons in 1999 that stated that women and girls from Colombia also are trafficked to

North America. According to press reports, more than 50 percent of women from Colombia who enter Japan are trafficking victims forced to work as prostitutes. Law enforcement authorities report that most trafficked persons come from the departments of Valle de Cauca, Antioquia, Santander, Cundinamarca, and the coffee-growing regions of Risaralda, Caldas, Quindio, and Tolima.

 

Police report that most traffickers are linked to narcotics or other criminal organizations. Traffickers disguise their intent by running media ads offering jobs, portraying themselves as modeling agents, offering marriage brokerage services, or operating lottery or bingo scams with free trips as prizes. Recruiters reportedly loiter outside high schools, shopping malls, and parks to lure adolescents into accepting phantom jobs abroad.

 

 

COLOMBIA - SOCIAL SECURITY

Social Security Office of International Programs:

 

http://www.ssa.gov/SSA_Home.html

 

COLOMBIA - STANDARD WORKWEEK

The law provides for a standard workday of 8 hours and a 48-hour workweek, but it does not require a weekly rest period of at least 24 hours, a failing criticized by the ILO.

 

(Section 6.e. Acceptable Conditions of Work, Columbia – Report of Human Rights Practices, 2001, U.S. Department of State.)