On the recordOctober 12, 2011
this is the same story. This is Panama's agreement, but Colombia's is even longer--hundreds and hundreds of pages of rules. I admire the Colombian people. They are our allies, but the Colombian Government not so much. Colombia remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. There were 23 trade unionists killed in 2011, and 51 were killed in 2010. What is happening to them is working. Over the past 20 years, unionization rates in Colombia have been cut in half. When you threaten trade unionists, when you actually murder them, of course, unionization rates are going to go down. The Labor Action Plan commits the Colombian Government to get better, but what we are doing by a ``yes'' vote is rewarding promises, as we always do in trade agreements. But we are doing nothing to establish and enforce concrete results. If you care about human rights, if you care about workers having the ability to freely organize and collectively bargain, you will vote no on the Colombian trade agreement. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
