Former employees of Colombian airliner AeroCondor threaten to kill themselves if they don’t get paid their pensions, 20 years after the airliner’s bankruptcy, a local newspaper reported Sunday.
According to newspaper La Vanguardia, the former employees of the private operator met on Sunday and complained that the government lacks the political will to solve the outstanding payment of pensions to the former employees.
The former AeroCondor workers say that 200 former employees have already died while waiting for their pension, that many were evicted from their homes because they weren’t able to pay their mortgages and that others are among the long list of victims of last year’s catastrophic rainy seasons.
A spokesman of the employees told La Vanguardia that the group will soon meet again to establish the time and place for the suicide if the government does not come up with a solution.
Supported by labor unions, the former AeroCondor workers plans to stage a protest before the Barranquilla justice department on Tuesday. The group has demanded help from Bogota, the International Labor Organization, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
AeroCondor was a Colombian airliner that operated between 1957 and 1980 when the company entered bankruptcy.