Colombian unions ready strike against government austerity

BOGOTA, (Reuters) -- Colombia's most militant unions Wednesday called a last minute 24-hour strike by an estimated 700,000 state workers to protest against government austerity measures and the highest unemployment rate in Latin America.

The action, due to begin at midnight (0500 GMT), will be the sixth major strike since the deeply unpopular administration of President Andres Pastrana took office in August 1998. Last year the government presided over the country's worst recession since record-taking began in 1905.

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The strike will also be the first challenge from labor facing newly-appointed Finance Minister Juan Manuel Santos, who last week pledged a 2001 budget of "sweat and tears" that would include 5,000 job cuts in the public sector and sub-inflation wage increases.

"We want to tell the national government that it needs profound changes to its macroeconomic policy," said Hector Fajardo, secretary general of the Communist-led Unitary Labor Confederation (CUT), the country's largest labor federation.

Less than 20 percent of Colombia's labor force is unionized. Thursday's action is due to include the USO oil workers' union, the main public sector employees' union FENALTRASE, telecommunications workers, teachers and health workers.

Previous strikes during the Pastrana administration, whose popularity dropped to around 20 percent in the latest opinion polls, have had little impact on production, communications or government administration.

Colombia's economy contracted a record 4.48 percent last year, while the 2.2 percent growth in the first quarter of this year has been achieved largely by imposing severe restrictions on spending as part of a loan deal with the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Despite signs of the economy is recovering, urban unemployment was at a record 20.4 percent, or about 1.6 million people, at the end of June -- the highest in the hemisphere.

Thursday's strike, organized by Communist Party union bosses, is the first since the Soviet-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, launched a clandestine political organization known as the Bolivarian Movement For A New Colombia. The movement, which top military brass have described as a "party for war," is designed to forge closer ties between the armed revolutionary "vanguard" and civilian mass organizations such as unions, student groups and neighborhood committees.

There was no immediate indication the rebels were planning armed strikes to coincide with the strike.

But in an effort to head off potential threats, the authorities in Bogota prohibited the sale of alcohol, suspended firearm permits and banned motorcycle riders from carrying pillion passengers -- a move designed to reduce the risk of drive-by shootings by gunmen on the left or right.

The FARC, with some 17,000 combatants and control of up to 40 percent of the country, has stepped up its attacks on government security forces in the wake of the U.S. Congress' vote in June to grant Colombia a record $1.3 billion package of mostly military aid to fight drug traffickers and guerrillas.

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