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Stop Killer Coke

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Coca Cola is the largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of nonalcoholic beverages, concentrates and syrups in the world. Coca Cola was invented in Columbus, Georgia, and has today more than 200 branches. Despite its popular appeal, there are many well-deserved criticisms of both the company’s products and trade practices.

Hundreds of Coke workers in Colombia and around the world have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by paramilitary death squads hired by Coke’s bottlers. Coke managers have ordered the assassinations of at least eight union leaders.  Isidro Segundo Gil, an employee at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia, was killed at his workplace by paramilitary thugs in December 1996.  His children had to flee and live in hiding with relatives.  Since their father was the fourth union leader killed at his plant in just two years, the children understand all too well why their homeland is known as "a country where union work is like carrying a tombstone on your back.”

Another horrific murder was the case of union leader Oscar Dario Soto Polo.  Oscar was shot dead in June 2001 in Montería, 500 km from Bogotá, while walking his 8 year-old daughter home from school.  Soto was the local president of SINALTRAINAL, the food and beverage union. The seriousness of the situation is best summed up by a SINALTRAINAL leader:  “If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives.”

In 2001, the first year that a lawsuit was filed in US Federal Court against Coca-Cola, the company made $4 billion in profits and paid its CEO, Douglas Daft, more than $105 million.  But while Coca-Cola continues to rake in billions each year, the frightening conditions at the Coke bottling plants remain unchanged.

The 2001 lawsuit was filed by the International Labor Rights Fund and theUnited Steelworkers of America union on behalf of SINALTRAINAL – the major union representing Coca-Cola workers in Colombia.  The lawsuit charges that Coca-Cola’s bottlers in Colombia “contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders.”  It also notes that Colombian troops connected with the paramilitaries have trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Georgia, where trainees were encouraged to torture and murder those who do “union organizing and recruiting;” pass out “propaganda in favor of workers;” and “sympathize with demonstrators or strikes.” This was made public when the Pentagon was forced to reveal the contents of training manuals used at the school. (For more information, see www.soaw.org, the website of SOA Watch.)

In 2003, US District Judge Jose E Martínez (Miami) ruled that Panamco, Coca-Cola’s main Latin American bottler, could stand trial for hiring right-wing paramilitaries to intimidate and kill union leaders in Colombia.  Even though Coke owns 39.6% of their Latin American subsidiary, the judge exempted The Coca-Cola Company itself, saying they did not have “explicit control” over labor issues in Colombia.  This is the first time that a U.S. judge ordered a company to stand trial for human rights violations committed overseas under the Alien Tort Claims Act.  But Coca-Cola in Atlanta could still get away with murder!

(The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke believes Judge Martinez should be recused in light of serious conflicts of interest, including his strong ties to the University of Miami and its athletics, which are intertwined with Coca-Cola.  Furthermore, his former law firm has a relationship with a Colombian law firm in which a named partner was a vice president of Coca-Cola Colombia.  Read more at http://www.killercoke.org/critalkpts.htm#item3.)

A subsequent lawsuit, filed in 2006 (http://www.killercoke.org/press0602.htm), charges that managers at the Coke bottling plant in Barranquilla, Colombia, conspired with both the Colombian Administrative Department of Security ("DAS") and another gang of paramilitary thugs to intimidate, threaten and ultimately kill SINALTRAINAL trade union leader Adolfo de Jesus Munera on August 31, 2002.
The complaint states that, "despite a number of warnings to Coca-Cola management in Atlanta that management in Barranquilla continued to meet with and provide plant access to paramilitaries, the paramilitary infiltration of this bottling plant continued unabated through 2006. These same paramilitaries continued to threaten SINALTRAINAL members and leaders with death and even kidnapped one union leader's child to discourage his father's union activities."
The complaint further points out: "The Coke bottler in Barranquilla terminated the employment of Adolfo de Jesus Munera Lopez on the pretense that he was a 'guerilla' wanted by Colombian authorities. In fact, Mr. Munera was fired because of his pro-union activities. …In 2003, the Constitutional Court of Colombia found that the Coke bottler had terminated Adolfo de Jesus Munera unlawfully and issued a back pay award, to be paid to his family, for the period from 1997 until his murder in 2002."
Coke boasts that the company and its bottlers have been dismissed from the human rights abuse lawsuits by Federal Judge Jose E. Martinez, but doesn't tell you that his rulings didn't deal with the merits of the cases, but with procedural and jurisdictional questions.

Don’t Let Coke Hide its Crimes in Colombia!

Organize your school! Kick Killer Coke Off Your Campus!

• http://killercoke.org/student.htm

Why are high schools, colleges and places of worship across the U.S. banning Coca-Cola?

• 8 union leaders at Coke bottling plants have been murdered by paramilitary hit men, hired by managers.
• US federal lawsuits name Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia.
• The food and beverage workers of Colombia (SINALTRAINAL) are calling for our solidarity!

As of August 2007, some 45 colleges and universities and a number of high schools had removed Coca-Cola from their campuses. Among them are large schools like New York University (the nation's largest private university), DePaul University in Illinois (the nation's largest Catholic university), and Rutgers in New Jersey (one of the nation's largest public universities), as well as smaller schools like San Jose City College, Union Theological Seminary, City University of New York Law School, Smith College and Manhattanville College.
Click here to see the entire list: http://www.killercoke.org/active-in-campaign.htm