Labor

Interview with Victor Osorio, President of Colombia’s Memoria Viva Security Guards Union

This interview with the Memoria Viva Union’s president Victor Osorio is available in Spanish on the AFGJ Youtube Channel The Memoria Viva (Living Memory) Union of bodyguards is the largest union in its sector. They are made up almost entirely of signers to the 2016 Peace Accord who ended the armed insurgency in favor of…

Speaking of disability

By William Camacaro (National Co-Coordinator) One of the most offensive expressions used to talk about people with disabilities is the term “handicapped.” Author David Mikkelson describes the origin of the word: “In 1504, after a brutal war in England, King Henry VII had an idea. King Henry knew that the war had left his country…

Labor organizing in the U.S. in 2022: confronting the anti-union, anti-worker corporate agenda

By Maya Hernández (National Co-Coordinator) This past year, profit-over-people ideology and anti-union efforts were particularly prevalent in sectors that demanded the most labor. Millions of dollars went into campaigns to stop union organizing at the same time that several anti-worker policies passed into effect, painting a grim future for workers across the United States. The…

The color of Covid: racial inequities in the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic 

“When white folks catch a cold, Black folks get pneumonia.” (My grandfather, George Robinson, Sr.) By Camille Landry (National Co-Coordinator) What color is Covid? Many people would say red and blue, citing the familiar graphic of a fuzzy red globe with blue spikes. Others might say that Covid has no color. But the Covid pandemic…

Death Squads threaten Colombian Human Rights Defender Darnelly Rodriguez twice in two weeks

We are very worried for the safety and security of Centro Pazífico coordinator, Darnelly Rodriguez. On November 19 2021, she received the second of two death threats in two weeks. This threat came from the AGC paramilitary group. She was listed along with several other social movement and union leaders in a pamphlet that was…

Solidarity Center Funding Skyrockets for Venezuela and Colombia

by James Patrick Jordan originally published in the Orinoco Tribune The Solidarity Center’s activities in Venezuela and Colombia skyrocketed last year. Funding from the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy (NED) soared to almost 60% over the previous year’s awards. The 2020 funding, alone, represents over 40% of the total for similar grants for the last…