The subsequent period of labor repression and co-option by the government served to eliminate radical elements of the movement while taming the less militant segments.

[2] The near anarchy that followed the 1948 assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, a member of Congress who had long been a champion of the disadvantaged, had a different although equally demoralizing effect on rural workers.

The UTC, which at this point commanded the majority of organized labor and the diminished rural groups, had no political means of effecting even the slightest changes and was without an advocate in national government.

[4] During the National Front period the UTC faced numerous internal problems, which caused many individual unions to withdraw from its ranks.

[2] Moreover, the UTC (along with CTC) was increasingly seen as instruments of the political elite, a factor contributing to its decreasing influence amongst Colombian workers.