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News New Mexico Media Outlets Peddle Pseudoscience for State Department of Health - by Dr. Ken Stoller How to Prevent Corporate Lobbyists from Destroying Your Health and Welfare - by Stephen Fox The Renewable Energy Legislative Agenda - by Ben Luce Sierra Club 2007 Legislative Priorities Focus on Cleaner Energy - by Tom Robey Legislative Priorities of CVNM and New Mexico’s Conservation Community - by Leanne Leith |
Stop Killer
Coke’s Worldwide Abuses In 2001 and 2006, the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers union filed lawsuits charging that Coke 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.” The lawsuits were filed on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the primary union representing Coke workers in Colombia; several of its members, and survivors of Isidro Gil and Adolfo Munera, two of the union’s murdered officers. A SINALTRAINAL Vice President said, “If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives.” American University Professor Lesley Gill wrote: “Murdered unionists [in Colombia] are not the product of indiscriminate, chaotic violence They are the victims of a calculated and selective strategy carried out by sectors of the state, allied paramilitaries, and some employers to weaken and eliminate trade unions Gill added: “Coca-Cola has consistently pressured unionized workers to resign Coca-Cola is, in fact, a stridently anti-union company, and the destruction of SINALTRAINAL, as well as the capacity to drive wages into the ground, is one of the primary goals of the extrajudicial violence directed against workers.” Coca-Cola falsely claims that more than 30% of its work force in Colombia is unionized. Of some 8,000 workers in Colombia who generate profits for Coca-Cola, about 90% are now considered subcontracted, flexible workers. They receive low pay, meager or no benefits, can’t join the union, have no job security or future with the company and are often mired in poverty. In 2004, New York City Council Member Hiram Monserrate led a delegation on a fact-finding mission to Colombia to investigate Coke’s human rights violations. “We heard one story after another of torture and injustice,” a delegation member said. “The sheer number of these testimonials is overwhelming.” The delegation issued a scathing report concluding “Coca-Cola is complicit in human rights abuses of its workers in Colombia” and “Coca-Cola bears responsibility for the campaign of terror leveled at its workers.” The Sydney Morning Herald (6/5/07) reported: “Employers led by a Coca-Cola executive [Director of Global Labor Relations Ed Potter] stopped the [United Nations] International Labour Organisation examining violations of workplace rights in Colombia...” Potter’s attempts to shield Colombia and Coca-Cola from scrutiny come at a time when the Colombian government and multinational corporations have been getting attention for their ties to paramilitary death squads that prey on workers and their unions. Across India thousands are protesting Coke’s overexploitation and pollution of scarce water resources and the high levels of pesticides found in its beverages. In several states, villagers insist that Coca-Cola’s bottling operations are “destroying lives, livelihoods and communities.” Its plant in Kerala has been shut down. A May 2007 report by International Environmental Law Research Centre in Geneva concluded: “The availability of good quality water for drinking purposes and agriculture has been affected dangerously due to the activity of the [Coca-Cola] Company the Company had also polluted the agricultural lands by depositing hazardous wastes. All of these point to the gross violation of basic human rights, that is, the right to life, right to livelihood and the violation of the pollution control laws.” “Coke is also widely produced in Mexico, an arrangement that is threatening the country’s water supplies and undercutting indigenous control of natural resources,” according to author Beverly Bell. Since 2000, Coca-Cola has been given “27 water concessions by the Mexican government. Nineteen of the concessions are for the extraction of water from aquifers and from 15 different rivers, some of which belong to indigenous peoples. Eight concessions are for the right of Coke to dump its industrial waste into public waters.” Dr. Ann Lopez, author and teacher at San Jose City College in California, stated: “The people of west central Mexico are easy corporate prey for predator Coke. You can’t stand anywhere in some of the rural towns and not see a Coke ad. I’ve seen what Coke is doing in the west central Mexico countryside where I do research: pushing their addictive products on peasant populations who can ill afford them and in which one in 10 may have undiagnosed diabetes.” The Campaign’s accomplishments thus far include the removal of Coke products from at least 45 college and university campuses. Many of the largest labor organizations in the U.S. and Europe have removed Coke machines, banned the sale and distribution of Coke products at their facilities and functions, and called upon their members to boycott Coke. The Coca-Cola Co. and its two largest bottlers have been dropped from the Broad Market Social Index (BMSI) list of socially responsible companies prepared by KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., an independent investment research firm that is considered a world leader in defining corporate responsibility standards. It was reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that KLD based its decision on a number of issues, including labor and human rights in Colombia and environmental issues in India “ This led to the divestiture of 1.25 million shares of Coca-Cola Co. stock and 185 thousand shares of bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises by TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund)’s $9 billion CREF Social Choice Account, the world’s second largest socially screened fund for individual investors. Coke’s brand name has lost 4 percent of its value the last two years, which translates into about a $2.3 billion loss. Coca-Cola is clearly a company that is horribly out of control a corporate system full of lies, deception, immorality, corruption and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses. It has inflicted great hardship and despair upon people and communities throughout the world. For consumers, Coca-Cola ads and product displays should serve as constant reminders of crimes and misconduct so unthinkable that all Coke products become undrinkable. You can help hold Coca-Cola accountable by: starting a Campaign to Stop Killer Coke chapter to rid Coke products from your school, workplace, community center, labor union, church and government agencies. contacting your city/town council to ban the sale and distribution of Coke products in schools, city buildings or city-sponsored events. going to www.KillerCoke.org to read the latest news and reports and sign up to receive our online newsletter. Get friends and colleagues to sign up as well. To contact Campaign to Stop Killer Coke: Email-StopKillerCoke@aol.com; Phone-(917) 779-0735 Editor’s Note: Mr. Rogers' prodigious and commendable efforts have been successful in getting Coke totally banned at (among many others): the University of Illinois, New York University, Smith College, Rutgers, and several Universities in Canada and in Ireland. He anticipates Vassar College will join this long list this year. Ray Rogers is the founder of Corporate Campaign, Inc., which has a long history of labor, human rights and environmental activism and established the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke in 2003. Ray has appeared frequently in media outlets worldwide. In 2006, Business Week described Ray as a “legendary union activist” and Time Magazine wrote in the ’80s that Ray has “brought some of the most powerful corporations to their knees, and his ideas are spreading. |
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