[News] US and Colombian Activists Target "World of Coca-Cola"

[Anti-Imperialist News]

US and Colombian Activists Target "World of Coca-Cola"

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2225/1/
Written by Matthew Cardinale
Tuesday, 24 November 2009

(IPS) Activists from the U.S. and Colombia are targeting the World of 
Coca-Cola museum, located near its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, 
accusing the company of "union busting", paying its workers "poverty 
wages", and engaging in environmentally destructive practices.

"We're an unofficial coalition with the India Resource Center, 
focusing on Coca-Cola overusing waters in drought areas. We're 
supporting Corporate Accountability International, that have been 
trying to stop the use of bottled water over tap water," Lew 
Friedman, of Killer Coke, told IPS.

"We're working on behalf of Sinaltrainal, the food workers in 
Colombia. They had eight union leaders murdered. We've been 
augmenting their legal suit," Friedman said.

"There's plenty of evidence that shows the plant managers were very 
cozy with the paramilitaries," he added.

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola was filed in 2001 by the United 
Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on 
behalf of the Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal, several of its 
members, and the estate of Isidro Gil, one of its officers who was murdered.

Coca-Cola bottlers "contracted with or otherwise directed 
paramilitary security forces that utilize extreme violence and 
murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade 
union leaders", the lawsuit states.

In addition, Killer Coke claims that many of the Colombian 
paramilitary troops were trained at the controversial formerly-named 
School of the Americas, now called the U.S. Western Hemisphere 
Institute for Security and Economic Cooperation, in Fort Benning, Georgia.

In 2003, the U.S. District Court removed Coca-Cola as a defendant in 
the case because the murders took place in Colombia, not in the U.S. 
However, two Coca-Cola bottlers remained as defendants in the case. 
In 2006, the judge dismissed the remaining claims.

When IPS asked Coca-Cola about Killer Coke's demonstration in Atlanta 
last week, the company replied in an email statement that it "was 
based on an uninformed and inaccurate portrayal of The Coca-Cola 
Company and independent Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia and based on 
allegations that are over ten years old".

"The unfounded allegations have been reviewed over the years by 
multiple courts in Colombia and most recently in the United States, 
as well as by the International Labor Organization, and outside law 
firms - all concluding that the Coca-Cola bottler employees in 
Colombia enjoy extensive, normal relations with multiple unions and 
are provided with safe working conditions there," Coca-Cola said.

While much of Killer Coke's focus seemed to be on the Colombian trade 
union issue, activists said other issues involved the alleged use of 
child labour in other countries and questions about the healthiness 
of Coca-Cola products in general.

"There are issues of health, the use of high fructose corn syrup," 
Friedman said.

As part of their campaign, Killer Coke has been successful at getting 
over 50 U.S. colleges and universities to stop selling Coke, and at 
getting the Service Employee Industrial Union (SEIU) and teachers' 
unions to stop carrying Coke in their offices.

Killer Coke decided to target Coca-Cola headquarters on its own turf, 
in Atlanta, in part by driving a mobile billboard around town that 
read, "Don't Drink Killer Coke Zero: Zero Ethics, Zero Justice, Zero 
Health." This is a pun on one of the company's products, Coke Zero, 
which is a near-zero calorie beverage.

"The World of Coke is basically one large advertisement for 
Coca-Cola. It's the centre of Coca-Cola, it's a mile away from their 
headquarters, it's basically their public image that's there," said 
Ian Hoffmann, a young activist from Minnesota.

"We've got people coming forward and saying it's an anti-union 
company. Coca-Cola usually says 'we're an Atlanta-based company. What 
happens in Colombia is out of our control, and more importantly, not 
our responsibility', even though they [the bottling plants] are 
bottling Coca-Cola products and helping the company with huge 
profits," Hoffmann said.

"We want some accountability. From my end, I'd like them to 
acknowledge what's going on there, explaining to us why after the 
union leader gets shot dead, that the next day no one signs a new 
contract with Sinaltrainal. How do they stand by that? How do you 
defend that?" Hoffmann said.

"If these are people that are working, bottling Coca-Cola products, 
how is it okay for this company to stand by and not take some kind of 
action?" Hoffmann said. "How could this be happening at Coca-Cola 
with management turning a blind eye?"

Hoffmann acknowledged it is difficult going up against a 
multinational corporation like Coca-Cola. "It's usually difficult 
because of the brand name. They have forced their way into every 
American fridge. The money they spend to get their name out and 
marketing to children. It's a Coke culture, you know, starting out 
with those ads with Santa Claus."

At a protest last week, activists chanted slogans and played a 
recording of a contemporary folk song called, "Coke is the Drink of 
the Death Squads".

They came from all over the U.S., including states like Illinois, 
Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota, as well as 
Washington, DC. Groups like Witness for Peace and School of the 
Americas Watch were also represented.

Martha Giraldo, 31, of Colombia, charged Coca-Cola's bottling plants 
with "using temp [temporary] workers on contracts three months or 
less long, and they don't pay a just wage, exterminating labour 
leaders, violating our Constitutional right to be unionised. In 
Colombia, we're in a human rights crisis."

Giraldo and another speaker spoke to the mostly English-speaking 
audience through a translator.

"People are marginalised in large cities of our country. We're all 
suffering a humanitarian crisis. It's not true what [Secretary of 
State] Hillary Clinton says when she says in Colombia we're safe and 
live in peace. It's only for some, large landowners and the 
paramilitary; the rest are marginalised for denouncing it. We are 
being accused of being guerrilla supporters," Giraldo said.

"In Colombia there are four million internally displaced people, 
who've been driven off their land because of terror campaigns of the 
paramilitary," Giraldo said. "In addition to fumigating coca crops 
and food crops and water sources we use to drink, approximately 
30,000 people disappeared in Colombia. We don't know where they are. 
It's been years since they disappeared."

"We're here in front of one of the symbols of capitalism. This 
company represents one of the perverse ways of accumulating capital. 
We're here to demonstrate on behalf of our dead brothers," said 
Gerardo Caja Marca in a speech at the rally.

"They systematically violate human rights in Colombia. All workers 
have the right and obligation to defend their rights. Simply 
exercising those rights has cost the lives of workers in Colombia," 
Caja Marca said.

"Lastly we came here to demand justice. These are the men of war. 
These are the ones who put seven US military bases in Colombia. These 
are the ones who create paramilitaries. We accuse Coca-Cola of 
financing assassins. We want truth and reparations," Caja Marca said.




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