TUI votes to boycott coke

national | consumer issues | news report Tuesday April 20, 2004 13:57 by Gearoid O Loingsigh - Lasc

Trade union shows its solidarity with Sinaltrainal

Frist motion by a Union Conference in support of the Coke workers in Colombia

Boycott Coca Cola Campaign

1. This union notes the call by the Colombian trade union movement for a year long boycott of Coca Cola and their products, which commenced on 22 July 2003, initiated by Sinaltrainal, the Colombian Food and Drink Workers Union and endorsed by the CUT, the Colombia Trades Union Congress, and supported by the World Social Forum.

2. This union notes with concern that 8 Sinaltrainal union leaders working for Coca Cola bottling plants in Colombia have been murdered by paramilitary death squads since 1990; Sinaltrainal members have also faced death threats, arrests, torture, kidnapping and the raiding of union offices and the homes of members to force members to renounce their right to association, resulting in a 50% reduction in union membership.

3. This union also notes the ongoing court case, filed in Miami in July 2001 by the US Steel Workers Union and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of Sinaltrainal under the Alien Tort Act, in which the Coca Cola bottlers are accused of contracting with or otherwise directing “paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders"; and that these assassinations included that of Isidro Segundo Gil, shot dead by paramiliaries at the gates of the Coca Cola bottling plant in Carapa in 1996, while in the process of negotiating better terms and conditions for Coca Cola workers.

4. This union also condemns the assassination attempt perpetrated against Juan Carlos Galvis, President of Sinaltrainal in Barracabermeja on 22 August 2003 and the kidnapping and torture of David Jose Carranza Calle, the 15 year old son of National Sinaltrainal leader and Coca Cola worker Limberto Carranza in September 2003.

This union thereby resolves to:

1. Support the boycott of Coca Cola products and call upon all members to actively support the boycott.

2. Contact Coca Cola in the Ireland to demand that it acts to stop the continuing repression of workers in its bottling plants in Colombia.

3. Send messages of support to Sinaltrainal.

4. Affiliate to the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and campaign against the continuing paramilitary and state sponsored terrorism against Colombia trade unionists.