Violence in the Municipal Companies of Cali - Colombia between 1995 and 2013. Paramilitaries attributed their death

Abstract

The interest of anthropologists to understand violence in Colombia has existed for several decades. Its incidence in studies of work and organization is relatively recent. In the nineties the Municipal Companies of Cali (Emcali) dedicated to the provision of home public services, experienced a set of difficulties resulting from financial indebtedness. The role of union leaders was to defend it from privatization. The objective of the article is to analyze the violence experienced by members of the workers' unions grouped in Sintraemcali and Serviemcali between 1995 and 2013, as a way to resist the intervention of the central government. The categories of violence are taken from Giraldo and Lopera (1996) to narrate from the actors, the crimes against life, several of these materialized by members of paramilitary groups.
The methodology includes techniques of in-depth interviews, participant observation and review of documentary sources that allowed the qualitative content analysis. It is concluded that the de-institutionalization of Emcali has to do with the transgression of the right to life resulting from the change of cultural values, linked to corruption and drug trafficking. With the instability of the environment many workers unionized to guarantee the right to work at a time of extreme instability. This facet has been best known by the new generations of users and inhabitants of a growing city - region.