On April 22, the USO launched the strike after a months-long campaign to prevent the state-run oil industry from being sold off to foreign capitalists. In June 2003 the Uribe government had announced plans to “restructure” the oil industry. It signed new and extended contracts with private companies for the exploration and production of oil fields on favorable terms for those firms. The oil workers recognized that privatization would likely mean reduced benefits and layoffs.

In face of the strikers’ determination and the support they won among other workers, the government signed an accord May 26 under which it will roll back the new contracts, and pledged to continue state control over the oil fields of central Colombia. The fired unionists, among them the union president, will retain their pension rights and can appeal their firings to an arbitration board.

Oil is a major source of foreign exchange for the government in Bogotá, accounting for one-quarter of the country’s exports even before the recent surge in prices. Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador are all among the top 15 suppliers of oil to the United States, and U.S. companies import more oil from those three than from the entire Arab-Persian Gulf region. British Petroleum and California-based Occidental Petroleum already have major operations in Colombia, and would welcome the opportunity to carve up a privatized Ecopetrol.

Two days before the strike began, the government militarized Ecopetrol, sending troops into the refineries. Once the walkout began, Uribe declared the strike illegal, using the argument that the oil industry is an “essential service.” The government imposed legal sanctions against officials of the union and arrested 17 strike leaders.

Police announced that “antiterrorism” measures would be used against the union, and the union reported receiving a rising number of death threats. Unionists have been targeted by ultrarightist death squads, sometimes known as paramilitary groups, that act as an extension of the army.

The oil strike took place in the context of a U.S.-backed military offensive by the government against a guerrilla insurgency. Under the banner of the “war on terrorism,” police have often carried out mass arrests of unionists and other opponents of the government.

Washington has backed the Colombian military’s antiguerrilla operations and its broader efforts to terrorize working people. In 2000 the Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia, through which Washington has funneled more than $2.5 billion in aid, mostly to the Colombian army. Colombia is now the third-largest recipient of U.S. military funding, after Israel and Egypt.

U.S. officials initially presented Plan Colombia as an effort to combat “drug trafficking,” and now is calling it an offensive against “narcoterrorists.” The U.S. ruling families have vast economic interests in Colombia and the broader region. They are also concerned about the continuing social upheaval in a continent where struggles by workers and peasants have brought down governments in Ecuador, Bolivia, and other countries.

The Colombian army has carried out military assaults to protect U.S. oil giant Occidental Petroleum. The Los Angeles Times reported May 16 that “U.S.-trained Colombian troops, backed by U.S. intelligence and private contractors, unleashed the offensive to stop rebel attacks on a pipeline” that the company depends on to transport its product. The use of such “private contractors” has become better known since a number of them were killed in the course of their role in the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

After one month, the strike at Ecopetrol spread to BP’s oil refining center in Barrancabermeja. There the union called a walkout after right-wing death squads killed at least 11 people and abducted 40 others, Reuters reported May 21.

On May 8 some 10,000 striking oil workers and their supporters marched in Bucaramanga, 200 miles north of the capital, the Colombian daily La República reported. The protest received broad union backing. “This demonstrates that the strike is not only for the workers at Ecopetrol, but for the all the Colombian people,” said USO president Gabriel Alvis.

Under the agreement signed with the government, those among the 248 fired workers with six years of seniority have the right to a full pension. Others can retire with a partial pension. Those who choose neither of these options can appeal for their jobs to a board that is supposed to rule on each case within six months. “All of the workers who were fired are going to the arbitration panel,” said the vice president of USO, who was joined by 173 of the other workers demanding their right to return to work.

The five-week walkout was the first strike called by the union at Ecopetrol since 1977.

As the oil strike ended, some 16,000 banana workers in Urabá province walked off the job, seeking wage increases and other contract improvements. The Uribe government has responded by sending an army contingent of 1,500 to Urabá to try to intimidate the strikers.  
 
 
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