Spotlight anti-union terror in Colombia
Coca-Cola workers go on hunger strike
By Teresa Gutierrez
Dozens of SINALTRAINAL union workers in
Colombia began a hunger strike against the Coca-Cola bottling
company there on March 15 to protest dire conditions in the
plants.
The hunger strike is in response to ongoing tactics by
Coca-Cola officials to break up the union and lay off workers.
The workers are also confronting a long-standing policy of
ruthless intimidation, including Coca-Cola's collaboration with
deadly paramilitaries.
The hunger strike is taking place in front of Coke bottling
plants in the cities of Barrancabermeja, Bogotá, Bucara
manga, Cali, Cartegena, Cúcuta, Medellín and
Valledupar. It is aimed at FEMSA, Coca-Cola's largest Colombian
bottler.
Last Sept. 9, the company closed the production lines at 11
of its 16 bottling plants, dismissing 91 workers. And in the
last few months, the company has pressured more than 500
workers into "voluntarily resigning" from their contracts in
exchange for a lump sum payment. Most of the union leaders have
refused to resign or take the money.
SINALTRAINAL's president, Javier Correa Suarez, stated in a
March 10 communiqué, "We denounce before the
international and national community ... that the [Coca-Cola]
administration trapped workers within the bottling plants as a
way of pressuring them to renounce their work contracts in
exchange for a small economic payment.
"Coca-Cola has been using this form of aggression since
2000. A Colombian judge and the Constitutional Court confirmed
that the company committed the crime of illegally constraining
workers. This new occurrence is happening as we are negotiating
our contract demands with the bottling plants of Coca-Cola that
are owned by Panamco Colombia S.A.
"With these acts, the company is looking to foment terror to
force the workers from their jobs if they do not succeed in
forcing them to resign. On the contrary, we are demanding that
the company respect the ruling by the judge on the lawsuit we
filed and that it abide by the collective bargaining contract
we have negotiated.
"This shows once again that Coca-Cola plants in Colombia
have not stopped their violent actions against workers, and
want to destroy SINALTRAINAL, direct hiring and collective
bargaining by any means necessary."
'Unthinkable, undrinkable' campaign
The struggle to protest Coca-Cola for its policies in
Colombia and around the world is on the rise. Beginning in July
of 2003, students, unionists and progressives in the U.S. and
around the world have picked up the call to not drink Coke.
The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke reports that more and more
student organizations are taking Coke vending machines out of
their campuses. This includes Carleton College in
Minnesota.
United Students Against Sweatshops called for solidarity
pickets throughout the U.S. the week of March 22 in support of
the hunger strike in Colombia.
According to the Stop Killer Coke Cam paign, dozens of union
locals throughout the country have ousted Coke machines from
their union halls after passing resolutions against Coke's role
in Colombia. These include United Auto Workers Local 22, the
largest General Motors local in Detroit. The militant
International Longshore and Warehouse Union, from the U.S. to
Canada, was one of the first to pass a resolution in solidarity
with Colombian workers and kick out Coke from its offices. Last
July, in San Francisco the longshore workers were instrumental
in organizing a major news conference to launch the
"Unthinkable, undrinkable" campaign in the U.S.
The Communications Workers, Plum bers and Fitters Local 393,
Canadian Labor Council, Service Employees Local 73, South Bay
Labor Council, and the San Francisco Labor Council have all
passed resolutions in support of the campaign.
The Boston School Bus Drivers Union, USWA Local 8751,
removed Coke mach ines from four bus garages. Steve Gillis, the
president of this Massachusetts local, traveled to Colombia in
December 2001 to participate at the tribunal organized by
SINALTRAINAL. Gillis is also a leader of Boston Labor
ANSWER.
Notably, in Texas--a "right-to-work" state--the Harris
County AFL-CIO Council united with SINALTRAINAL leader William
Mendoza Gomez to confront Coke's board of directors last
year.
What's at stake in Colombia
Union busting is not foreign to the workers in the U.S. Many
a worker in this country has fought tooth and nail as well as
died for the right to organize a union in their work place and
to defend other labor rights.
In fact, May Day, which is commemorated by millions around
the world, was borne from the intense and militant struggle of
workers in the U.S. against capitalist exploitation.
This intense class struggle is raging in Colombia today.
Pitched battles to defend not only unions, but the lives of
workers and generations to come, are raging in war-torn
Colombia. This is in response to the fact that the most
dangerous place for labor activists in the world today is
Colombia. Three out of every five unionists killed in the world
are Colombians.
To fight union busting and the growing attacks on workers in
Colombia means that activists literally take their lives into
their hands. To be an active unionist in Colombia today is to
truly be a working-class hero. She or he is a class-conscious
militant who has faced naked repression and said, "I will not
be turned back, I will continue the fight."
The fight of SINALTRAINAL workers against Coca-Cola's
merciless policies is a good example of the raging class
struggle in Colombia.
It is a struggle where the intervention and support of the
movement in the U.S. can literally save lives.
The vice president of the SINALTRAINAL union in
Barrancabermeja, Juan Carlos Galvis, has said: "If we lose the
fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our
jobs and then our lives."
The movement in the U.S. must do everything it can to
prevent that from happening.
Reprinted from the April 1, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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