Enfrentando el Poder con Solidaridad - Informe de la BP AGM en Londres

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BP AGM: ‘Confronting Power with Solidarity’

On Thursday 15 April a team from community group COS-PACC, Espacio
Bristol-Colombia and the Colombia Solidarity Campaign entered the BP AGM
to press the Petition of Demands drawn up by the Movement for Dignity of
Casanare: for a union collective agreement, for environmental and human
rights protections, for real social investment and for the corporation to
take goods and services from local suppliers.

While outside we picketed alongside the Stop the Tar Sands campaign and
distributed a summary of the Petition of Demands to shareholders, inside
we handed over a letter to BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg with personal
signatures by 3,400 casanareños insisting that BP respects the popular
movement’s choice of representatives in talks around these five themes.

The talks were scheduled from 14 to 16 April in Tauramena, Casanare. Late
on 14 April we received a copy of the letter that BP Colombia had sent to
the workers union USO in response to their and the community’s Petition of
Demands. BP Colombia were playing hard ball:

"1. We reject as injurious and far from all reality the imputations
against the company made in the document. Given the seriousness of the
same and convinced that our conduct has been according to the law, BP will
make known the content of these imputations to the competent authorities
so that [they might] take the corresponding action.

2. BP does not give the document the character of a “Petition of Demands”
for the conclusion of a Collective Agreement, as is mentioned there, as in
complete conformity with the law this mechanism, established to start a
collective labour negotiation, is only possible between, on the one hand,
one or two employers or employers associations, and on the other, with one
or several trade unions or union federations that represent the unionised
workers in these same employers, which is clearly not fulfilled in this
case."

In the Colombia context the declaration to “make known the content of
these imputations to the competent authorities so that [they might] take
the corresponding action” is a clear threat. Denying legitimacy to critics
of BP makes them all the more vulnerable to extra-legal as well as legal
attacks. It was therefore important to know from the BP group executives
did they accept the legitimacy of the Petition of Demands?

Espacio Bristol-Colombia picks up the story BP AGM: Confronting Power
with Solidarity at http://gizzacroggy.blogspot.com/

In the AGM BP Chairman Svanberg presented the complaints as being against
the pipeline company Ocensa, rather than BP itself, but this is clearly
not the case otherwise why did BP Colombia write such a harsh letter to
USO? In any case, on the ground it is BP that project manages production
and makes all the key decisions.

Svanberg dodged answering the straightforward question - does BP consider
the workers and community’s demands legitimate? This is in contrast to his
acknowledgement that the Tar Sands campaigners raise “legitimate concerns
on an aspect of our business”. BP has still to decide whether it will
proceed in investing in Tar Sands extraction, yet the people of Casanare
have been dealing with the actual impact of its operations since the early
1990s.

So, cannot Colombians also raise legitimate complaints and demands against
BP? Certainly, the corporation has yet to recognise this in practice. It
was forced into talks by the effectiveness of a one month strike and
community mobilisation, but the 14-16 April round in Tauramena ended
without any substantive progress.

The next round of talks is due to take place at the end of April. We will
remain attentive to the situation and ready to continue mobilising as
required.

Email actions:

Send message of concern pressing acceptance of the Petition of Demands to
(41% pay rise confirmed at AGM, now earns over £4 million) BP’s Executive
Director and Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward at email:
tony.havward@bp.com

Send solidarity message to Movimiento por la Dignidad de Casanare –
Colombia at email: movimientoporcasanare@yahoo.es
More Information:

Summary of the Petition of Demands see
http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/content/view/497/31/

New Internationalist report by Jess Worth
http://blog.newint.org/editors/2010/04/20/brazen-posturing/

David vs Golitah - video report on Casanare’s complaints and mobilisation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSBqe1OSmY&feature=channel

Thanks to friends in the (Spanish oil multinational) Repsol Kills
campaign, a mobilisation also took place in Barcelona on 14 April, see
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/392841/index.php
http://repsolmata.ourproject.org

The case against BP in Colombia will be presented to the Permanent Peoples
Tribunal hearing at the Linking Alternatives summit in Madrid 14-18 May.
http://tni.org/article/people%E2%80%99s-summit-enlazando-alternativas-4

Tar Sands reports:

‘Party at the Pumps’ Stop the Tar Sands takeover of a BP petrol station on
10 April:
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/4613

BP + Tar Sands = Climate Crime
http://london.indymedia.org/articles/4634

BP investors: heads stuck in tar sands
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/21/bp-tar-sands

Video: why tar sands activists took on BP
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/467354/video_why_tar_sands_activists_took_on_bp.html