After more than twenty days on strike, members of UNTRAFLORES continue to occupy one of the Benilda plantations because the company has not paid all of their August salary or what it owes in healthcare for the workers, leaving many without health services.  The company, owned by one of Colombia’s wealthiest families, is also pressuring its 500 contracted workers to accept partial severance pay in exchange for their resignations or transfer over to one of the cooperatives from which they contract, claiming the company is on the brink of bankruptcy and will not have money to pay full severance, as required by Colombian law.

The strike is the result of years of problems with Benilda management, particularly the ownership’s late payment of salaries and negation of its legal and negotiated responsibilities to the workers, including health insurance and pension payments.  Workers halted operations by taking over the plantation when they went on strike on September 10.

UNTRAFLORES, a Facatativá-based union of independent flower unions, is questioning the company’s allegations of bankruptcy and their intentions to strip workers of their severance pay and other benefits, including social security and pension.  The union has sat down several times with owners as well as representatives of local and national government offices without reaching any acceptable conclusions as the company will not agreed to pay all of what they owe in full.

For more information directly from the union, see www.untraflores.org [1].