[News] US and Colombian Activists Target "World of Coca-Cola"
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Nov 25 11:11:06 EST 2009
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.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20091125/e92cc6b2/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list