TUESDAY MARCH 23 - NATIONAL SOLIDARITY HUNGER STRIKE
SUPPORT HUNGER-STRIKING COKE WORKERS IN COLOMBIA!
FIGHT TO SAVE THEIR UNION!
COMMUNIQUE NO. 3
COCA-COLA WORKERS REACH 86 HOURS IN HUNGER STRIKE
Today in Bogotá we participated in a large march against the invasion in Iraq.
SINALTRAINAL supports the just struggle of the Iraqi people to obtain their national sovereignty, and demands that the invasion forces led by the United States immediately leave Iraqi territory and that a sovereign people decide their own future.
We also reject Plan Colombia for being a plan of war that seeks the annihilation of entire communities and the destruction of their social organizations. At the same time, we're opposed to the strategy of economic domination called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA.
The U.S. government and its allies aren't the only ones that kill defenseless people. Their corporations also impoverish, repress, and contaminate our land and peoples.
In Colombia, various communities continue struggling and resisting the aggressive policies of U.S. companies. Cases such as Coca-Cola, Drummond, and Occidental Petroleum Company, demonstrate the terrorism exercised by the United States through its corporations.
The hunger strike continues.
Thirty Coca-Cola workers have been on a hunger strike for 86 hours. They are holding out against being fired and having their union organization wiped out. These 30 compañeros, in addition to contributing to the construction of a large movement of struggle against hunger and for sovereignty and food security, have gone without food since 6 A.M. on March 15 in order to reject the criminal policies of this U.S. corporation. The response to this dignified struggle of the compañeros has been pressure from the company and threats from the paramilitaries.
Latest news from the hunger strike:
1. A situation of high risk at the site of the hunger strike in Barrancabermeja. On March 16, at 8:30 P.M., the Administrative Security Department (DAS) was called because of the presence of four unknown individuals close to the site. This government security agency refused to provide support. Finally, after a lot of contact and pressure, the National Police arrived which caused the unknown individuals to leave. These individuals were present at the same time that the electricity was out in the area.
2. On March 16, at 5 P.M., various members of the National Police came to the site of the hunger strike in front of the administrative center in Bogotá. They had orders from the Fontibón mayor's office (using the pretext of visual contamination) to remove the placards, posters, and awning. After various negotiations, those things were left in place. Coca-Cola was not able to break our protest through the use of the security forces.
3. Today, a press conference was held in Barranquilla with the presence of our compañero, Daniel Kovalik - the lawyer of the victims that filed suit against Coca-Cola in the court in Florida. There was good participation by the press, workers' families, and social organizations from the city.
4. The negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement between the union organizations and Panamco Colombia S.A. were called off today because of the complete arbitrariness of the Coca-Cola corporation, its intention to take away more rights from the workers, and its desire to massively dismiss more workers.
5. Various compañeros were cited for disciplinary actions at the bottling plant in Bucaramanga for participating in the protest. They had to be treated by medical personnel because of their state of health and were connected to medical equipment to prevent dehydration.
6. We maintain the firm intention of saving our jobs. The 30 compañeros, led by our President, Luis Javier Correa Suarez, are continuing the hunger strike. Their spirits are remaining high, their ideals are firm, and their health is stable.
7. Up to now, Coca-Cola has not shown any intention of resolving this conflict.
FOR OUR JUST DEMANDS...LONG LIVE THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA-COLA
FOR A DIGNIFIED AND SOVEREIGN COUNTRY...WE WILL CONTINUE RESISTING FOR LIFE.
YOUR SUPPORT AND PARTICIPATION ARE GUARANTEES OF VICTORY.
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I just talked with William Mendoza in Barrancabermeja. His cell phone number is 57-310-680-7996 (011 is the international access code, 57 is the country code for Colombia, and 310 is the code for his cell phone provider). He said that some of the compañeros in other parts of the country have started an indefinite hunger strike (rather than the rotating hunger strike that started on March 15). The plan is that other workers will also join the indefinite strike on Tuesday, March 23 (Monday is a holiday and not the best day to increase pressure and get media coverage).
I also called the national office of the union in Bogotá. Edgar Paez is responsible for international relations and is coordinating all the information about the hunger strike. His cell phone number is 011-57-310-212-7232. Information is being posted to the web site - www.sinaltrainal.org I talked with Gonzalo Quijano, who is also on the national board. Gonzalo's cell phone number is 011-57-310-481-2651. He said that he's with Edgar Paez and Javier Correa most of the time. Javier hasn't eaten anything since Monday and has remained in front of the Coke plant in Bogotá. Javier's cell phone number is 011-57-310-212-1200. The number for the national office of SINALTRAINAL is 011-571-232-4626.
In solidarity,
Scott
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As of Monday March 15, Coca-Cola union workers in Colombia have been on hunger strike in front of Coke bottling plants. They are taking this drastic step to bring Coke to the bargaining table and end years of injustice and suffering from a company terror-campaign against the union, its members, and their families.
Join USAS in our national day of solidarity by hunger striking on campus or in front of one of Coke's 16 bottling headquarters!
These are offices where students are ALREADY planning actions; contact us to connect up with these students:
Needham Heights, MA (near Boston)
Atlanta, GA
Cincinnati, OH
Niles, IL (near Chicago)
Oakland, CA
Los Angeles, CA
New York City
Columbia, MD
The offices below HAVE NOT YET been organized. If you live near them, please contact us to plan a small action outside the facility:
Knoxville, TN
Tampa, FL
Mission, KS
Phoenix, AZ
Dallas, Houston
San Antonio, TX
You can also support the union by holding a hunger strike and actions on your campus, if you can't make it to one of the headquarters.
Contact Lenore@usasnet.org or 212 265 7000 ext 4351 or Judi at mnitsch@indiana.edu if you want to get further involved.
BACKGROUND
On Monday March 15, Coca-Cola union workers in Colombia began a hunger strike in front of the Coke bottling plantsin Barrancabermeja, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Medellín, and Valledupar. Juan Carlos Galvis, vice president of the local union in Barrancabermeja, has said, "If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives."
On September 9, 2003, Coca-Cola FEMSA, Coca-Cola's largest Colombian bottler, closed the production lines at 11 of their 16 bottling plants. (The Coca-Cola Company shares several board members with Coca-Cola FEMSA and owns 46.4 % of its voting stock.) Since then, they've 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 and the company has now escalated the pressure against them. On February 25, the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection (Labor) authorized Coca-Cola FEMSA's plans to dismiss 91 workers - 70 percent of whom are union leaders. This is Coca-Cola's effort to essentially eliminate the union.
United Students Against Sweatshops supports the union's call for Coca-Cola FEMSA to relocate those workers to other positions within those plants or to transfer them to other plants. This is what the company is required to do, according to Articles 18 and 91 of the current collective bargaining agreements. In January, a Colombian judge also ordered the company to do this for the workers at the plants in Barrancabermeja and Cúcuta.
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COMMUNIQUE No 2: HUNGER STRIKE IN COCA COLA - COLOMBIA
Today, 16 March we are 35 hours into the hunger strike by Coca Cola workers in Colombia, for the defence of the right to work and against serious attacks by the multinational. Here is our information for national and international public opinion.
1. At 10.30 a.m. on 15 March (4 hours after the strike started), compañero Euripides Yance the President of the Barranquilla branch of SINALTRAINAL was threatened over the telephone. The caller intimidated those on hunger strike. This situation made us fold up the public tent at 6 p.m. and move the participants to the trade union headquarters in the city. Today our comrades have returned to the entrance of the Coca Cola plant, where they are continuing with the protest.
2. And on 15 March, from 6 a.m. the Ministry of Social Protection attended the Coke plants in Cúcuta and Bucaramanga, with the pretext of supposed strikes or illegal work stoppages. The officials returned to the Cúcuta plant at 7 a.m. under the same pretext. We are concerned with this interest by the Ministry of Social Protection in presumed work stoppages, since we have never announced that production will be halted.
3. Management at the Cúcuta and Bucaramanga leaves the plant gates open all the time; something which has never occurred before. This is strange, and it seems designed to allow access into the plants of persons hostile to the workers out to cause damage, creating difficulties for our protest which is being carried out in a peaceful manner. We do not forget that in the past strange people have come into the plant, leaving graffitti in the washrooms which were paramilitary threats against the union leaders.
4. The attitude of middle management in the plants has been to try and provoke the workers, trying to spread bad feeling against the hunger strikers who are staying there in tents.
5. During the morning hours of today, 16 March, two Toyota Prado vans with dark windows, one grey with number plate OBR 049 and the other white with number plate BOH 961, showed up at our protest in Cali. This happened several times, giving concern and upset to the hunger strikers. This situation has already been denounced to the authorities.
6. Compañero Eberth Suarez the President of the Cali branch of the union received threatening calls on his mobile phone this morning.
The above events worry us deeply, there could well be an attempt to destabilise the conflict; more especially since the corporation is being reluctant to talk with the workers.
Once again we denounce the pro-boss attitude of the Ministry of Social Protection that authorised the closure of 10 Coca Cola plants and the collective sacking of workers when this corporation is one of the most profitable in the country and the world. Government policy is contradictory in that it authorises the closure of profitable production whilst unemployment is growing in Colombia.
The corporation is substituting direct employees with exploited sub-contractors supplied through [so-called] associated work co- operatives and pimp labour supply agencies, so by-passing the collective work agreements.
Once again we demand that the corporation immediately respects the rights of its workers as protected in the national constitution and we seek a solution to this labour conflict.
Please send messages to:
COCA COLA FEMSA
Juan Manuel Arbelaez (Director de Recursos Humanos)
Armando Gómez (Jefe de Relaciones Laborales
Telefonos 2942800 y 4011413 fax. 4011687
agomari@femsa.com.mx y cocacola@hotmail.com
DEFENSORIA DEL PUEBLO
COLMAN PEREZ (Defensor del Pueblo)
GUSTAVO ROBAYO
Teléfonos: 3147300 y 5708331
MINISTERIO DE PROTECCIÓN SOCIAL
Dr. DIEGO PALACIO BETANCURT (Ministro)
Dra. LUZ STELLA VEIRA (Jefe de Unidad e Inspección)
Teléfonos: 3365066 y3410631 *
Yours sincerely,
EDGAR PÁEZ M.
National Executive
SINALTRAINAL - Colombia
* Colombia Solidarity Campaign adds: And to Jose Nunez Cervera Coca Cola European Public Affairs e- mail jnunezcervera@eur.ko.com and Martin Norris, Communications Director, Coca-Cola, UK mnorris@eur.ko.com
With copies to e-mails: areainternacional@sinaltrainal.org; StopKillerCoke@aol.com ; colombia_sc@hotmail.com
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COMMUNIQUE No. 1 FROM SINALTRAINAL, THE COKE WORKERS' UNION:
WORKERS ON NATIONAL HUNGER STRIKE FOR THE RIGHT TO WORK AND
AGAINST THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AT COCA-COLA
Starting at 6 A.M. on March 15, we, the workers, have initiated a Hunger Strike in front of the Coca-Cola plants in Barrancabermeja, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Medellín, and Valledupar. We're doing this to denounce, nationally and internationally, that nine Coca-Cola workers have been killed and 67 have been threatened with death; and that we've been the victims of attempted murder, kidnappings, forced displacement, and the burning of one of our union offices by the paramilitaries. This has forced many workers to resign from the union. We're also denouncing the unjust termination of employment contracts, the use of illegal confinement to force workers to resign, the subcontracting of more than 88 percent of the workers and the impact this has had on living conditions, and the attempt by Coca-Cola to eliminate rights in the negotiations of collective bargaining agreements as has been occurring since March 1 of this year.
We're struggling for truth, justice, and reparations. That's why we filed suit in Southern District Court in Florida, United States, against the Coca-Cola bottlers. On March 31, 2003, Judge José E. Martínez, ruled that the cases filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) for violations of human rights could proceed for, among other reasons, the symbiotic relationship that exists between the paramilitaries and the Colombian state. But Coca-Cola has tried to criminalize various leaders of SINALTRAINAL, falsely accusing them of insult, slander, conspiracy to commit a crime, terrorism, rebellion, sabotage, property damage, and theft. In this way, Coca-Cola stigmatizes the unionists in order to justify their persecution and repression by the government through the legal system. Various leaders of SINALTRAINAL have been unjustly imprisoned, in spite of having shown that we're innocent and were falsely charged.
Since September 9, 2003, Coca-Cola has kept the bottling plants in Barrancabermeja, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Ibague, Montería, Neiva, Pasto, Pereira, Popayán, Valledupar, and Villavicencio illegally closed. Previously, they illegally closed the bottling plants in Bogotá, Buenaventura, Girardot, and Mariquita. To complete this panorama of injustice, on February 25, 2004, the Social Protection Ministry authorized the dismissal of 91 workers. This was done without taking into account that the company had already pressured more than 500 workers to resign, which is more than the 300 workers that the company initially wanted to dismiss. Coca-Cola has not respected the law, nor does it want to fulfill the legal resolution ("tutela") that ordered it to relocate the workers in other positions. It is refusing to abide by articles 18 and 91 of the collective bargaining agreements that require it to not dismiss workers in the case of a reduction of activities, closure of plants, or restructuring; but to train the workers and relocate them in other positions. With all this, the company is trying to destroy SINALTRAINAL, finish off the collective bargaining agreements, eliminate direct and long-term employment contracts, reduce costs, and increase its profits, by producing in just five megaplants and supplying the market from distribution centers.
We, the workers affected by the closure of the production lines, are continuing to resist. But, given the grave aggression that we're continuing to suffer, there's no other recourse but to declare a hunger strike and demand that Coca-Cola respect the law, and fulfill the legal resolution passed by the judge in January 2004 to protect the right to work and require Coca-Cola to relocate the workers in other positions. We're also demanding the fulfillment of the collective bargaining agreement by relocating the workers in other positions, an end to the repression, and respect for our human rights.
LUIS JAVIER CORREA SUAREZ, President, SINALTRAINAL