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Sixty-three point five % of trade unionists murdered from 1999 to 2009 throughout the world were killed in Colombia. Rather than looking at the causes of this violence, this paper focuses on individual and collective strategies which enable militant work to continue in such a context of sociopolitical repression. By examining these mechanisms, this paper sheds light on the most prominent investments and retributions activists get from their work and on the strategies deployed by the organization in order to encourage and preserve engagements. Therefore, repression would lead to building an antiestablishment ethos and be the source of motivation for activist work in a context of increased polarization.