Coca-Cola Kills Union Organziers
This entry was posted on 6/7/2006 10:09 AM and is filed under Bad Employers.
(originally submitted by Bill Pickering of UAW Local 259)
"On Friday, June 2, 2006, the ILRF and USW filed a new Alien Tort Claims Act case against the Coca-Cola Company and its Latin American Bottler, Coca-Cola FEMSA. This new Complaint charges that managers at the Coke bottling plant in Barranquilla, Colombia conspired with both the Colombian Administrative Department of Security ("DAS") and the AUC paramilitaries to intimidate, threaten and ultimately kill SINALTRAINAL trade union leader Adolfo de Jesus Munera on August 31, 2002. The Complaint further allege that, despite a number of warnings to Coca-Cola management in Atlanta that the management at the Barranquilla bottler has continued to meet with and provide plant access to paramilitaries, the paramilitary infiltration of this bottling plant continues unabated to this day. Meanwhile, these same paramilitaries have continued to threaten SINALTRAINAL members and leaders with death and even kidnapped the child of one SINALTRAINAL leader to pressure him into refraining from his union activities."