Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Michele May" <mmay.lmft@cox.net>]

 

If this doesn’t scare you, then nothing will, ever!

 

-----Original Message-----
From: stop-imf-admin@lists.essential.org [mailto:stop-imf-admin@lists.essential.org] On Behalf Of Robert Weissman
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 1:41 PM
To: stop-imf@lists.essential.org
Subject: [stop-imf] FW: Urgent Action - Solidarity with Oscar Olivera in Bolivia

 

From: "Neil Watkins" <neil@jubileeusa.org>

To: <j2000-grassroots@yahoogroups.com>

 

 

Please find below an action alert to support Oscar Olivera, one of the

leaders of the union and social movements in Bolivia that have been

challenging IMF/World Bank policies. Oscar and his group, La Coordinadora, successfully challenged the privatization of water by the World Bank and Bechtel corporation in 2000 and have been organizing on many fronts since then.

 

As the action alert below indicates, Oscar has been denied his wages and his

family has been stripped of health insurance. If you have a second to write

an e-mail to the folks listed below as the alert requests, it would be a

strong act of solidarity. If you have any questions/for more information,

please contact to Marcela Olivera, Oscar's sister, at

marcelaolivera@mindspring.com, or Ravi Khanna (contact details at the

end of the message.

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: <mailto:marcelaolivera@mindspring.com>Marcela Olivera

To: <mailto:marcelaolivera@ceibo.entelnet.bo>Marcela Olivera

Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:55 AM

Subject: Solidarity with Oscar Olivera

 

Friends and fellow activists,

 

Our friend and comrade Oscar Olivera is presently the object of a

contemptible campaign of persecution. He has been denied his wages at

Manaco Footwear Company (who belongs to the transnational Bata, in Canada)

without just cause or any explanation.  Moreover, Oscar, his wife, and his

children have been deprived of their medical insurance. Both of these acts

have stripped away two of Oscar s basic rights as a worker: the right to

collect wages earned, and the right to health care.

 

As happens to someone every day in Bolivia since we began to lift up our

heads and fight, Oscar and his family are being robbed of their right to

health and life. Oscar is one of the few social fighters in Bolivia who has

supported himself and his family without any special privileges or extra

income beyond that of an ordinary worker. It is our duty and collective

responsibility to challenge, with dignity and with our heads held high,

this latest arbitrary act of Manaco s management.

 

One of the historic conquests of Bolivian workers is the right for locally

elected union leaders to receive their regular salary and benefits from the

company while they are performing full-time union work. This is not a favor

generously bestowed by the bosses. Rather, it is a fundamental obligation

of the employers to the workers who, with their own labor, support their

union representatives.

 

In recent days, the General Manager of Manaco, Arturo Blanco, publicly

accused Oscar of using Manaco s workers to serve his personal interests.

Sr. Blanco alleged that, under the pretext of protesting the impending

layoff of 16 workers and the surprise announcement of a week of factory

down time without pay, Oscar was seeking to incite workers to join his

organization.

 

The truth, however, is that individual workers, and the Manaco Union as a

whole, approached Oscar to represent them in the struggle against

management s decision to impose an unpaid vacation on workers and to layoff

the 16 co-workers. The Union considers that the fight is an important

collective struggle because it views the unexpected scheduling of temporary

down time as a possible first step toward the permanent closing of the

factory.

 

Management has told workers that workers have received bonuses in the last

three periods because the company has been losing money. Yet, evidently

speaking out of the other side of his mouth, Sr. Blanco has been quoted as

publicly stating that our firm has achieved its highest level of economic

performance of the last four years.

 

What is certain is that the large transnational firms such as Bata, which

owns Manaco, view the smaller factories, such as the one in Cochabamba, as

nuisances. Or, to use management s technical language, we are considered to

be a unit of production with very high costs. It is clear that the factory

will either be closed or will see its workforce reduced to a minimum a

process that has been underway for years.

 

What Sr. Blanco has contributed is to have accelerated this process through

his incompetence and wastefulness which is precisely what Oscar has

criticized.

 

For all of these reasons, we urge you to help us organize a national and

international campaign to denounce and repudiate Sr. Blanco s

arbitrariness. We ask that every person who is outraged by what is being

done to Oscar and his family, and that every organization, union, and

private or public institution who disagrees with Manaco s practice of

persecution, raise their voice and express their indignation. Please send

letters of support for Oscar to the following addresses:

 

 

Arturo Blanco, Manaco's Manager,ablanco@manaco.cnb.net

Fax (591-4) 4117305

Fax (591-4) 4263013

 

Copy to: Fernado Rivera, latam@bata.com.mx (Bata regional official in

Mexico)

Tomas Bata, batalim@toronto.bata.com (Bata CEO in Canada)

Tomas Bata Jr., sbata@toronto.bata.com

Federation of Factory Workers from Cochabamba, fabrilco@supernet.com.bo

(Oscar's unions)

 

ps - The latest update is that Oscar has said he will begin a hunger strike

until his wages and health insurance are restored.

 

 

Forwarded by:

 

_________________________________

Ravi Khanna, Director

voices from the global village

1world communication

P. O. Box 2476

Amherst, MA 01004

phone: 413-253-1960

cell: 617-620-9640

fax: 413-253-1961

e-mail: <mailto:oneworld@igc.org>oneworld@igc.org

subscribe to 1world communication's listserve by sending an e-mail to:

<mailto:1worldcommunication-subscribe@topica.com>1worldcommunication-subscri

be@topica.com

Access 1world communication archive of articles:

<http://www.topica.com/lists/1worldcommunication/read>http://www.topica.com/

lists/1worldcommunication/read

 

 

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