Coca-Cola Paralyzed by Ex-Fleet-Workers in Venezuela

[Joanne98]

, June 12, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Former Coca-Cola transportation workers have totally paralyzed Coca-Cola production and distribution in Venezuela, calling for President Hugo Chávez to intervene in the six-year dispute over severance pay. Monday, Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) ruled against the ex-workers’ claims and officially ended its 16-month mediation of the dispute.

Over the past five days, the ex-workers have blocked access to all four bottling plants and 26 out of 32 distribution centers run by FEMSA, the Mexican firm which holds Coca-Cola’s concessions in Venezuela.

According to Manuel Ureña, the national coordinator of the Union of Ex-Workers of Coca-Cola FEMSA, the company owes a total of 520 million bolivars ($242 million) to 11,633 former fleet-workers. “The company should assume the responsibility of fulfilling the labor rights of the ex-workers,” Ureña commented to the press this week.

FEMSA claims the protesting workers were last employed by the previous Coca-Cola concession-holder, Panamco, before FEMSA took over operations in Venezuela in 2003, so FEMSA is not responsible for the ex-workers’ grievances.

According to Coca-Cola FEMSA’s Human Resources director Ignacio Mayorca, the company lost $15 million as a result of three separate takeovers of company facilities by the ex-workers so far this year.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3546

[Joanne98]

1. Venezuelan Steel Co. Contract Workers Incorporated,

Mérida, June 13, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Contract workers from Venezuela’s recently nationalized SIDOR steel plant were declared permanent workers and incorporated into the United Steel Industry Workers Union (SUTISS) Tuesday, in accordance with the collective contract that SUTISS signed with the government in early May, following 16 months of embattled negotiations with the previous private management.

“We have placed one more stone in the construction of a world model of Socialism of the 21st Century,” President Hugo Chávez declared during the ceremony in the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.

An initial group of 216 contract workers were incorporated into the collective contract Tuesday, out of a total of 1,248 who are on track to obtain permanent status in a gradual process laid out in clause 97 of the contract.

Chávez announced that the new SIDOR will become a “socialist” enterprise run by the government together with the workers. “This is an historic day, on which the working class continues converting itself into the vanguard of the Venezuelan people and the Bolivarian Revolution,” the president boasted.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3551

[Joanne98]

2. Chavez Announces New Economic Initiatives for Venezuela

13, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made several important economic announcements at an event in Caracas Wednesday night. In the presence of various Venezuelan business leaders, the president announced economic initiatives that aim to raise production in strategic sectors of the economy and encourage private business owners to get involved in the economic development of the country.

Chavez called on Venezuelan business leaders to make a “strategic national productive alliance” with the government in order to raise national production and reduce inflation. The event, called “Productive Re-advance: Investment is Venezuela”, was held in Caracas with more than 500 of the country’s most influential business leaders and televised on all the major TV channels.

As a part of a series of economic changes in order to spur the industrialization of the country, Chavez announced plans to create a fund to invest in strategic sectors of the economy. The fund will have a total of US$ 1 billion, half of which will come from the Venezuelan development fund FONDEN, and the other half from the Chinese Strategic Fund, a joint investment fund set up between the governments of Venezuela and China.

The strategic sectors that President Chavez named for investment are: food production, agro-industry, manufacturing, petrochemicals, machinery, energy production, and public works for housing and urban development. Chavez called on the private sector to team up with the government and invest in joint projects with the state in these areas.

“Start preparing projects,” he said to the business leaders. “The conditions will be very easy and flexible.”

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3552

[Judi Lynn]

3. Coca Cola's having tough sledding in Venezuela. They'd probably sell their souls to get the same

power over Venezuelan workers they managed to get in Colombia, where they have been feared and hated for years, due to the excessive kidnappings, tortures, and assassinations of their union activists.

DANIEL M. KOVALIK TERRY COLLINGSWORTH
UNITED STEELWORKERS NATACHA THYS
OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO/CLC INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FUND
Five Gateway Center 733 15th Street N.W. Suite 920
Pittsburgh, PA. 15222 Washington, D.C. 20005
Tel-412-562-2518; Fax-412-562-2574 Tel-202-347-4100; Fax-202-347-4885

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
_____________________________
SINALTRAINAL; THE ESTATE OF )
ISIDRO SEGUNDO GIL; LUIS )
EDUARDO GARCIA; ALVARO )
GONZALEZ LOPEZ; JOSÉ DOMINGO )
FLORES; JORGE HUMBERTO LEAL; )
JUAN CARLOS GALVIS )
)
all c/o SINALTRAINAL )
Carrera 15 No. 35-18 )
Santafé de Bogotá )
Colombia, S.A. )
)
Plaintiffs, )
)
v. )
)
THE COCA-COLA COMPANY, )
One Coca-Cola Plaza, Atlanta GA, 30313; )
COCA-COLA DE COLOMBIA, S.A, c/o )
One Coca-Cola Plaza, Atlanta GA 30313; )
PANAMERICAN BEVERAGES, INC., )
701 Waterford Way, Miami, FL 33126; )
PANAMCO, LLC, 701 Waterford Way, )
Miami, FL 33126; PANAMCO )
INDUSTRIAL de GASEOSAS, S.A. a/k/a )
PANAMCO COLOMBIA, S.A. )
c/o 701 Waterford Way, Miami, FL 33126; )
RICHARD I. KIRBY, )
881 Ocean Drive, Key Biscayne, FL 33149; )
RICHARD KIRBY KIELLAND, 881 Ocean )
Drive, Key Biscayne, FL 33149; and )
BEBIDAS y ALIMENTOS de URABA, )
S.A., c/o 881 Ocean Drive, Key Biscayne, )
FL 33149, )
)
Defendants. )
_________________________________ )
CIVIL ACTION NO.
COMPLAINT FOR EQUITABLE
RELIEF AND DAMAGES
JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

....
Robert Stropp, Jr.
Edward M. Gleason, Jr.
MOONEY, GREEN, GLEASON
BAKER, GIBSON & SAINDON, PC
Suite 400, 1920 L Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
[phone]
FAX [phone]
....
COMPLAINT
I. INTRODUCTION
1. This case involves the systematic intimidation, kidnapping, detention and
murder of trade unionists in Colombia, South America at the hands of paramilitaries
working as agents of corporations doing business in that country. The violent persecution
of trade unionists in Colombia has been at epidemic proportions for many years. Since
1986 when the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia ("CUT"), the largest trade
union confederation in Colombia, was formed, over 3,800 trade unionists have been
murdered. Presently, of every five (5) trade unionists murdered in the world, over 3 are
Colombian. This case, brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, RICO and state tort law,
is brought to remedy and prevent the violent persecution of trade unionists at various
locations of one particular company doing business in Colombia -- Coca Cola. This
campaign of terror against trade unionists in Colombia and at Coca Cola in particular is
ongoing. For example, on June 21, 2001, at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Monertia, in
the Cordoba Province of Colombia, Oscar Dario Soto Polo an employee at this operation,
and a member of the Executive Committee of the CUT, was gunned down in the street as
he was accompanying his youngest daughter to her house. Sen. Oscar Soto was engaged
in negotiations with Coca Cola at the time over union proposals to provide security to
trade unionists under threat.
II. NATURE OF THE ACTION
2. Plaintiff SINALTRAINAL is a Colombian trade union and a member of
the CUT. SINALTRAINAL represents workers at a number of beverage and food
companies in Colombia, including several Coca-Cola bottling plants throughout
Colombia. SINALTRAINAL (hereinafter referred to as the "Union") has been decimated
.....
by the intimidation, kidnap, detention, torture and assassination of numerous of its leaders
by paramilitary forces working as agents of corporate concerns, including Defendants, in
Colombia. Plaintiff Union brings this Complaint for equitable relief and damages to
remedy the injury to itself caused by the wrongful conduct of the Defendants Coca-Cola
Company (hereinafter referred to as “Coke”); Coca-Cola de Colombia, S.A. (hereinafter
referred to as “Coke Colombia”); Panamerican Beverages, Inc., Panamco, LLC
(collectively referred to herein as "Panamco"); Panamco Industrial de Gaseosas, S.A.
a/k/a Panamco Colombia, S.A. (hereinafter referred to as “Panamco Colombia”); Richard
I. Kirby, Richard Kirby Keilland and Bebidas y Alimentos de Uraba, S.A. (hereinafter
referred to as “Bebidas y Alimentos”).
3. Plaintiff Estate of Isidro Segundo Gil ("Plaintiff Estate") represents the
estate of Isidro Segundo Gil who was murdered by paramilitary forces inside the Carepa
plant of Defendant Bebidas y Alimentos. Plaintiff Estate brings this Complaint against
Defendants Coke, Coke Colombia, Bebidas y Alimentos, Richard I. Kirby and Richard
Kirby Keilland for damages to remedy the wrongful death of Isidro Segundo Gil which
was proximately caused by the wrongful conduct of these Defendants.
4. Plaintiffs Luis Eduardo Garcia, Alvaro Gonzalez, José Domingo Flores,
Jorge Humberto Leal and Juan Carlos Galvis bring this Complaint against Defendants
Coke, Coke Colombia, Panamco and Panamco Colombia for equitable relief and for
damages to remedy the injury to their persons caused by the wrongful conduct of these
Defendants.
5. The claims in this case arise from Defendants’ wrongful actions in
connection with their production, bottling and distribution of Coke products in Colombia.
With respect to their business operations in Colombia, the Defendants hired, contracted
.....
with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and
murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders of the
Union representing workers at Defendants’ facilities. The individual Plaintiffs have been
subjected to serious human rights abuses, including murder, extrajudicial killing,
kidnapping, unlawful detention, and torture in violation of the Alien Tort Claims Act
(ATCA), 28 U.S.C. §1350, the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA), international
human rights law, and the common tort law of the state of Florida. Further, Defendants,
their alter egos and/or their agents engaged in a conspiracy to cause physical and mental
harm to Plaintiffs in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
(RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq.
6.

More:
http://lrights.igc.org/projects/corporate/coke/COKEFINComplaint.pdf
http://lrights.igc.org/projects/corporate/coke/