{"id":9062,"date":"2017-10-05T10:51:02","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T10:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=9062"},"modified":"2017-10-05T10:51:02","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T10:51:02","slug":"international-campaign-in-defense-of-jouseth-chaves-and-francisco-cruzs-lives-from-sitrasep-costa-rica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/international-campaign-in-defense-of-jouseth-chaves-and-francisco-cruzs-lives-from-sitrasep-costa-rica\/","title":{"rendered":"International campaign in defense of Jouseth Chaves\u2019 and Francisco Cruz\u2019s lives, from SITRASEP, Costa Rica"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the beginning Of 2016, <\/em>Jouseth Chaves and Francisco Cruz have been at the front line of the process of\u00a0organization of workers of the company Exportaciones Norte\u00f1as S.A., pineapple producer, in the border zone of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, more precisely in Santa Fe de Los Chiles, Alajuela province.<\/em>
\nBy SITRASEP – Costa Rica.<\/strong>
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\nIn the region, the comrades are invested in organizing the workers\u2019 and peasants\u2019 struggle. Particularly in big pineapples and oranges agro-exporter businesses, they have made dozens of environmental and labor denunciations, which has earned them a major prestige among workers and the determinate hate of several businessmen of the region.
\nThe district of Los Chiles is the one with the greatest concentration of immigrants in Costa Rica, and most of the labor and peasants\u2019 struggles have a high number of Nicaraguan immigrants.
\nFoundation of SITRASEP<\/strong>
\nThe workers and former workers of the pineapple project in Santa Fe de Los Chiles have been struggling for respect of their rights.
\nIn the heat of the strikes and organization, the Private Workers\u2019 Union (SITRASEP) was funded, in a massive public event, on May 1 of 2016.
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\nSince March 2016 until today, 6 strikes took place, most of them lasting several days.
\nThese strikes confronted a harsh repression by the bosses and Costa Rica\u2019s government. In many cases, workers were shot by the company security office, and they were surrounded by riot squads ready to repress. They could not repress the struggle because the workers were prepared to confront the police and because the struggles were covered in solidarity by dozens of social organizations of the country.
\nSITRASEP\u2019s achievements in Santa Fe<\/strong>
\nThanks to these strikes, basic rights that were violated for over 7 years were achieved, such as the annual bonus, paid vacations, extra-hours, minimum wage, compensation for unjustified dismissal, safety equipment, and uniforms, among many other things.
\nAll of this caused for 600 million colones<\/em> (104 million dollars) on 2016, which normally would have gone to the bosses\u2019 hands, to go to the workers and former workers dismissed in 2015 and beginning of 2016 without the right to a fair compensation.
\nSITRASEP has been increasing its number of members and its reputation in the region. Today, it counts with an affiliation of 50% of the workers of the Finca<\/em>, which counts with 600 workers in total.
\nThe company\u2019s reaction<\/strong>
\nThe pineapple company confronted the union\u2019s development in all possible ways, firing workers growing as leaders, moving its influences for the public force to repress the strikes, etc. During the last strike, it even tried to make a group of ex-workers to organize and break the strike by force, it sent private security to shoot fire guns against the strikers, and it keeps a policy of blacklists in the region against the union, to pressure the workers to stop fighting for their rights.
\nCurrently, before the attempts of strikes, the company doubles the private security at the entrance, besides organizing armed individuals along strategic points of the road to wait for the strikers.
\nSITRASEP leaders receive death threats<\/strong>
\nFrom a meeting that took place on Saturday, June the 3rd, 2017, between Rodrigo Garc\u00eda Brenes, owner of the company, his assessors, and the former union leaders, Jos\u00e9 \u00c1ngel Picado and Henry Rosales, they launched a public campaign against the Union, and a process of punishment and threats against the union\u2019s leaders.
\nFrom that meeting on, a series of events took place that clearly attempts against the physical integrity of the main union leaders in the region, Jouseth Chaves and Francisco Cruz.
\nSunday, June 4:<\/strong> a workers\u2019 assembly was scheduled. The former leaders, present in Saturday\u2019s meeting with the company, appeared as thugs with a defying attitude. They insulted and threatened SITRASEP leaders directly. A formal denunciation was made at the prosecutor\u2019s office for serious threats<\/em>, currently investigated under the file number 17-000195-0801- PE.
\nThursday, June 8:<\/strong> it was scheduled a meeting with the Finca<\/em> contractors to debate the process of negotiation of the collective agreement. The contractors were not present, and, instead, a group of 20 people was waiting for Jouseth and Francisco with the clear intention of attacking them.
\nFriday, June 9:<\/strong> the thugs appeared outside the company were Jouseth and Francisco were meeting with the firm, and they stood at the door waiting for them.
\nTuesday, July 18:<\/strong> after a meeting of the SITRASEP regional at the Santa Fe pineapple company, 3 individual waited for Jouseth Chaves to come out of the meeting place, according to they own words, to \u201ccrush him.\u201d The reason was that the company called a meeting with them and told them their names were on the blacklist, promoted by the Union.
\nThursday, July 20: <\/strong>several neighbors informed there were 5 men hidden in the bushes near Francisco Cruz\u2019s home, aiming to surprise him at the moment he went out.
\nSunday, September 1:<\/strong> a peasant warned Fransciso Cruz that he heard some men saying that when they saw Jouseth or Francisco alone on the street they would shoot their heads off because they were tired of the presence of the union in the region.
\nThere is no doubt that the meeting of those thugs with the contractors\u2019 boss and assessor was to plan all these actions taking place. We will not allow another threat or attack to the SITRASEP comrades. All necessary measures are being taken to avoid this, including legal measures.
\nWe will not allow any attack to our comrades. We believe it is a responsibility of the social movement as a whole to avoid this struggle for workers\u2019 rights to end in tragedy. Thus, we make a call to all labor, students, and social organizations to join the cause and demand for these threats to be investigated.
\nWe demand from the Luis Guillermo Sol\u00eds government to guarantee union freedom in the Finca Pi\u00f1era de Santa Fe, and we make him responsible for any attack against the union leaders of the region.
\nSITRASEP grows in midst of a bosses\u2019 dictatorship<\/strong>
\nWith the foundation of the SITRASEP, a bosses\u2019 regime that has been banning labor organization in Costa Rica is put in check.
\nThis generates hate by the bosses who managed to eliminate the unions in the private companies of the country.
\nAfter organizing the workers of the pineapple company Exportaciones Norte\u00f1as, the workers of the factory Sajiplast S.A.<\/em>, in the metropolitan area of Costa Rica, also affiliated to the union to struggle against occupational accidents and for their wages.
\nLater, the workers of the Pi\u00f1era Nenita Farm<\/em>, also in Los Chiles, funded a sectional of the union, but they were harshly repressed by the bosses and the police, with some detentions and deportations by the migration police.
\nSITRASEP is still fighting and making new public denunciations of dozens of companies that violate labor rights.
\nOn August 22, more than 45 organizations launched a national campaign in defense of private workers\u2019 right to organize, and on September 5 a note was delivered to the Presidency of the Republic demanding protection to the union leaders Jouseth Chaves and Francisco Cruz.
\nSolidarity is urgent to protect SITRASEP leaders<\/strong>
\nDespite the legal and political efforts to pressure the Ministry of Labor, the Public Ministry, and the President of the Republic, the State of Costa Rica has done nothing to protect the union freedom of the workers affiliated to SITRASEP not to ensure the safety of the threatened leaders.
\nThus, from SITRASEP we make a call to all labor and popular organizations of the world to take a stand on this matter and demand for the State of Costa Rica to stop protecting the interests of the bosses above the workers\u2019 and unionists\u2019 human rights.
\nWho is Jouseth Chaves?<\/strong>
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