Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC)

The Confederation of Colombian Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de Colombia—CTC) was the first national labor confederation in Colombia. The return of the Liberal Party to power in 1930 was followed by extensive unionization, culminating in the establishment of the CTC in 1935 to represent all unionized workers. Transportation workers were the backbone of the CTC, which was weakened by bitter rivalry between Communist and Liberal factions. In exchange for supporting Liberal candidates the CTC received government funds, yet it could not shed its image as a radical organization of the extreme left.

The Liberal government crushed a major strike by river dockworkers in 1945 because it felt that the CTC had become too powerful. In 1947 the CTC had 109,000 members, who belonged to 427 affiliated unions. When the Conservative Party returned to power in 1946, it supported, at the urging of the Catholic Church, a rival confederation, the Union of Colombian Workers (UTC). By 1950, the UTC had replaced the CTC as the largest labor organization. Defections from the CTC to the UTC and the growing ranks of unaffiliated unions further weakened the CTC, which by 1959 represented only 27 unions.

Following the Cuban Revolution the U.S. government, through the CIA, convinced the CTC to expel remaining Communist members. In return, the CTC received funds and backing to revive itself as an attractive alternative for those workers not comfortable with the Catholic and Conservative ideas of the UTC. The expelled Communists set up the Syndical Confederation of Colombian Workers (CSTC) in 1964, while the CTC, with support from the Colombian and U.S. governments, was able to push its membership figures back above 100,000. In 1979 the CTC claimed to have more than 400,000 members, almost the same number as the rival UTC. By then the CTC was a hollow organization whose corrupt leaders had lost contact with the rank and file. Many unions defected to the new Unified Central of Workers (CUT). By the early 1990s the CTC represented less than 13 percent of unionized workers in Colombia; its membership had dropped below 80,000. Although still weak, the CTC managed to survive into the early twenty-first century.

See alsoLabor Movements .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cabrera Mejía, María Alicia. El sindicalismo en Colombia: Una historia para resurgir. Bogotá, Colombia: M. A. Cabrera Mejía, 2005.

Caicedo, Edgar. Historia de las luchas sindicales en Colombia. Bogota: Ediciones Suramerica, 1982.

De La Pedraja, René. "Colombia." In Latin American Labor Organizations, ed. Gerald Greenfield and Sheldon L. Maram, pp. 179-212. New York: Greenwood, 1987.

López-Alves, Fernando. "Explaining Confederation: Colombian Unions in the 1980s." Latin American Research Review 25 (1990): 115-133.

                                      RenÉ De La Pedraja