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April 22, 2002 Colombian Coca-Cola Workers Speak Out Hundreds of members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters rallied in the streets of Manhattan on Wednesday, April 17, in a show of international support for their fellow workers in Colombia. As the unionists assembled outside of Madison Square Garden, executives and shareholders from the Coca-Cola Corporation were inside for the group's annual meeting. The action by the Teamsters was designed in part to draw attention to the appallingly high number of union workers, including employees in plants owned by Coca-Cola subsidiaries, assassinated each year in Colombia as part of the ongoing political violence in that country.
Correa, who addressed a group of students and labor activists at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earlier in the week, bears horrific news from his homeland. Since 1985 over 3,800 union workers and leaders have been assassinated in Colombia, making it by far the most dangerous place on earth to fight for workers' rights. In 2001, according to the United Workers' Central (CUT), the country's 600,000-member central trade union, there were 169 assassinations of union workers, 30 more attempted assassinations, 79 "disappeared" or kidnapped, and over 400 reports of threats and intimidations. More union workers are killed annually in Colombia than in the rest of the world combined. And, as of this week, 2002 shows every indication of keeping pace with 2001's horrific toll: 45 unionists have been killed so far in Colombia. "The situation of the labor movement in Colombia is very grave," Correa said. In his 20 years working for Coca-Cola, he has never seen such miserable prospects for workers. He spoke of the constant harassment and intimidation of members of his union by the right-wing paramilitary group, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Fourteen SINALTRAINAL leaders have been killed in the last decade, according to Correa, seven of whom worked for Coca-Cola, and three were killed during periods of collective bargaining. "The threats increase during the collective bargaining process," he said. "Many union offices have been sprayed with gunfire. More than 60 of our leaders are in hiding." One of those leaders is William Mendoza, who narrowly avoided a paramilitary ambush early in April and is now underground, according to Correa. Mendoza is an outspoken SINALTRAINAL member from Barrancabermeja in the department of Santander, a city in northern Colombia that is occupied by the paramilitaries. "There's a death penalty declared against union leaders," Mendoza explained in an interview earlier this year. "There's full complicity between the employers, the state, and the paramilitaries." He insists that the corporations, like Coca-Cola, that benefit from low-wage labor in Colombia turn a blind eye to murder and union-busting because it benefits their bottom line. That allegation is being made elsewhere, far from the cramped union hall in Barrancabermeja: in a United States Federal District Court hearing room in Miami, Florida. On July 21, 2001, the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers of America filed suit on behalf of the Colombian union against Coca-Cola, alleging corporate complicity in the death of Isidro Segundo Gil. On December 5, 1996, Gil, a member of his union's executive board, was shot down by paramilitaries at the entrance to a Coke bottling plant in Carepa (see, Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders). The union was involved in contract negotiations at the time, and the following day, the AUC reappeared and demanded that all union members resign. They also destroyed the workers' union hall, which was subsequently rebuilt and occupied by the paramilitaries. Mendoza said that the U.S. embassy and Coke's headquarters in both Colombia and the United States were informed about the incident. To date, however, no formal charges have been brought in the killing. "Unfortunately," he explained, "impunity in this country is 100 percent."
Because the unions resist these policies, and insist on social security measures, equal distribution of land and resources, and fair wages for Colombian workers to close the gap between rich and poor, they must be undermined. "We want, and we should have, self-determination. The Colombian people support the unions, but the dirty war has been very intense," Mendoza said, referring to the paramilitaries' reign of terror. "It has weakened the unions in this country." Neither Mendoza nor Correa is shy about assessing the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid that goes by the name Plan Colombia: "The motivation behind Plan Colombia is for the United States to assure the best control of these countries, and drown people in their own blood if they attempt to resist," said Mendoza. The $1.3 billion aid package, most of which was designated for military use, is seen by the union leaders as a way for the United States to secure its corporate interests under the guise of the "war on drugs, " and since September 11, as part of the "war on terror." In addition to Coca-Cola, there are dozens of other large U.S.-based multinational corporations operating in Colombia: Exxon-Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Drummond Coal Co., and Dole, to name just a few. With the announcement by the Bush administration in February that it was proposing $98 million expenditure to train a battalion to protect one of Occidental's pipelines, Correa and Mendoza appear to be on the right track. "They're trying to target our resistance movement and at the same time exploit the riches concentrated in those areas," Correa said, noting that Bush has expanded Plan Colombia to encompass other countries as part of an Andean Region Initiative. "To us, the intent is quite clear. This is an outright attack on the civil population in those countries." Though faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, the men hold out hope. "All we want is to live in a country with better conditions," Mendoza said. "And we know we can." Correa, though, discussed the possibility that Colombian citizens might elect a President, Alvaro Uribe, with strong ties to the right-wing paramilitary movement. Elections will be held later this summer, and Uribe is presently the front-runner. "He is going to apply the all-out war formula," Correa predicted. "If he wins the election, he's just going to throw out the Congress of the Republic. The very few chances the country has for a democratic future will be unreachable." Both Mendoza and Correa expressed the strong belief that international solidarity between unions in Colombia and the United States was the key to ending the violence that they face. Correa ended his presentation to the labor activists at Harvard with a call to act before it's too late. "Exert pressure on your own government," he said. "Many deaths and a lot of misery will be avoided." Patrick Keaney is an independent journalist who focuses on labor and human rights issues. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
Copyright © 2003 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved. |
"Coca-Cola
must acknowledge that the killing and abuse of its workers is far
more than a marketing problem," said James P. Hoffa, Teamsters
General President, at the shareholder meeting. "This company
must take responsibility for its employees and negotiate an enforceable
rights agreement with its unions." Hoffa was joined at the
convention by Luis Javier Correa Suarez, President of Sindicato
Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos (SINALTRAINAL),
Colombia's food and beverage union. Correa has been traveling the
United States as part of a speaker's tour organized by the Teamsters,
to raise awareness about the grim realities that workers face in
Colombia.
Correa
and Mendoza see larger forces at work in the efforts to stamp out
unions in Colombia. Obviously, replacing union workers with temporary
workers without contracts is going to boost corporate profits, which
is certainly one of the motivations behind the assassinations. But
the two union leaders agree that because of the central role that
unions play in civil society in South America, they are being targeted
in order to prepare the way for Colombia's further integration into
the global economy. As the neoliberal economic policies favored
by Washington get imposed on the continent, the entire region will
become one giant export zone. "U.S. policy, generally, in Latin
America, is to drain the resources of these countries to the States,"
Mendoza said.