Coca-Cola Sued in U.S. by Guatemalans Over Anti-Union Violence

[Derechos]

By Patricia Hurtado

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Coca-Cola Co. was sued by Guatemalan workers who say they endured a “campaign of violence” by people working on behalf of bottling and processing plants Coke owns or owned there after they engaged in union activities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601127&sid=an3NZK5YaGHw

[Judi Lynn]

1. So these people are preying upon the descendants of Guatemalan workers

who were terrorized and murdered by the United Fruit Company (Chiquita) in the 1950's prior to Eisenhower and the CIA overthrowing their elected, and popular President Arbenz.

It's a familiar pattern by now, isn't it?

The very idea of workers trying to resist not having their life's work and energy wrung from them at slave wage levels under dangerous conditions. It's enough to make a corporatist roll his eyes.

Thanks for this alert.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Coca-Cola Faces New Violence Claims in Guatemala

Coca-Cola Faces New Violence Claims in Guatemala
Thursday, 04 March 2010 11:14
Guatemalan union leaders and their families are pursuing a lawsuit in a New York court against Coca-Cola Co., accusing the world's biggest beverage company of negligence and complicity in violence aimed at union activists, as well as deception.

The case draws together a coalition of lawyers and activists who participated in previous legal battles against Coca-Cola centering on its labor practices in Colombia. The lead attorney is Terry Collingsworth, who has pushed lawsuits against Coca-Cola for a decade. The unofficial public relations wing is the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, one of the company's most aggressive and vociferous foes.

Latin America has been the site of some of the most controversial claims surrounding Coca-Cola, which denies involvement in any wrongdoing -- including squashing labor unions in Colombia -- and has generally defended itself successfully in court cases. The company says, for example, that two different judicial inquiries in Colombia found no evidence that management at Coke's bottlers conspired to intimidate or threaten trade unionists.

The case filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan accuses Coca-Cola of using an offer of protection for the family of plaintiff Jose Armando Palacios to try to get him to waive his employment rights at a Guatemala City instant coffee- and Coca-Cola processing facility owned by Industria de Cafe, or Incasa.

Palacios was a union leader until 1991, but he was forced to resign from the union when he took a job as an in-house security guard, according to the lawsuit. In 2004, he re-joined the plant's union.

According to the lawsuit, Palacios was shot at and threatened at work. Armed men broke into his home and pointed guns at his family. A man who looked like him and drove a similar-color car was shot in front of his house, according to the lawsuit. Palacios fled to the United States in 2006; his family followed later.

More:
http://www.beverageworld.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37478&catid=3&Itemid=173