For Immediate Release
February 19, 2005, 12am
Toronto — The Canadian Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is having a National Day of Action on February 19 to protest Coca-Cola's complicity in murder, torture and union busting, and it's connections to the Royal Bank of Canada.
PHOTO OP
Killer Coke Campaign Mascot.
WHAT & WHY
In Toronto on February 19, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will be holding information pickets to draw attention to the upcoming board meeting of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in Halifax on February 23. The connection between RBC and The Coca-Cola Company is simple: J. Pedro Reinhard. Mr. Reinhard sits on the board of both companies, as well as Dow Chemical (notorious for its continued refusal to compensate the victims of the Bhopal tragedy). The Canadian Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is calling on RBC to remove Mr. Reinhard from its board.
WHERE & WHEN
The Canadian Campaign to Stop Killer Coke will be protesting at two Toronto branches of the Royal Bank of Canada:
10am at Yonge and Eglinton
12pm at Yonge and St. Clair
WHO
Supporting organizations include: ACT for the Earth ~ the ACTivist Magazine, CASA (the Colombia Action Solidarity Alliance), Oakville District Labour Council, OPIRG – Toronto, and the Polaris Institute.
COKE CAN'T HIDE ITS CRIMES IN COLOMBIA
As many union leaders and organizers are killed in Colombia every year as the rest of the world combined. Isidro Segundo Gil, an employee at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Colombia, was killed at his workplace by paramilitary thugs. His children, now living in hiding with relatives, understand all too well why their homeland is known as "a country where union work is like carrying a tombstone on your back." Isidro is one of many. There are undisputed reports that Coca-Cola bottling plant managers in Colombia, South America, allowed and encouraged paramilitary death squads to murder, torture and kidnap SINALTRAINAL leaders and members in an effort to crush their union.