The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

From: Avi

Please see below the wonderful letter from Fredericton, New Brunswick. We
need a flood of letters in the next couple of days! Please help! You can
send them to mine president Leon Teicher through
andres.soto@cerrejoncoal.com, with copies to Sintracarbon at
jdeluquez@hotmail.com ; flozan1@yahoo.com; jquiroz11@gmail.com.

Fredericton Peace Coalition * Fredericton Social Network

Leon Teicher
President, El Cerrejón
Riohacha, La Guajira
Colombia

January 22, 2007

Dear Mr. Teicher,

We are writing from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Approximately
sixteen percent of the electricity in our province of New Brunswick is
generated using coal from El Cerrejón coal mine. In November, the buyer of
your company's coal in our province, NB Power, wrote a letter urging your
company to negotiate in good faith with the National Coal Workers' Union
(SINTRACARBÓN). This letter is in response to recent reports that the union
is considering a strike vote due to the lack of agreement with your
company's management with regard to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement
for 2007-2009. While we understand that progress has been made to reaching
an agreement on several issues, there are still many key issues yet to be
addressed to the satisfaction of the workers and communities.

We are aware that the union has included demands of several mine affected
communities as part of its bargaining proposal. We are also aware that some
communities have been waiting nine years for compensation of damages done
in relation to El Cerrejón's coal mining operations.

We urge that El Cerrejón come to a respectable agreement with the union and
with the communities regarding their demands. We support the union in their
quest for safe and fair working conditions, and increased wages and
benefits. We also support the demands of the communities to be treated
justly in the way of fair relocation, compensation and reparations.


Sincerely,

Tracy Glynn
Fredericton Peace Coalition

Michelle LeBlanc
Fredericton Social Network


cc -Sintracarbòn; Jaime Deluquez, Freddy Lozano and Jairo Quiroz


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