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Workers Power Global, Melbourne. 25 July 2003
For over ten years workers in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia have suffered murder, detention, torture and intimidation – all directed at stopping them forming an effective union.
Despite the murder of at least eight unionists and the disappearance and abuse of many more, the workers and their union SINALTRAINAL have not been defeated. On 22 July in fact we saw the beginning of a year long campaign to bring international pressure on Coca-Cola to clean up its act in Colombia and around the world.
The campaign got its Australian launch with a rally of 150 people in Melbourne’s Federation Sq., a rally in Sydney and several smaller actions around the country.
The Melbourne action was built by the Colombia Demands Justice campaign which included Workers Power, the socialist youth group REVOLUTION, the Socialist Alliance, Friends of the Earth, the Chilean Popular and Indigenous Network and individual latin American solidarity activists. It was promoted by the Victorian Trades Hall in a very positive press release calling on trade unionists to show solidarity with workers in Colombia.
But in Australia the campaign has already created some controversy. Though some trade unions, like the ETU (Electrical Trades Union) in Melbourne have come in strongly behind the campaign, others have been more reticent.
SINALTRAINAL have called for an international consumer boycott of Coca-Cola products as part of their campaign to raise awareness and pressure the company. Though only one small part of a much broader campaign, it has caused a lot of concern for some trade unions.
The CFMEU in Melbourne for example, have a deal with Coca-Cola which gives their members cheap cans of Coke on building sites and a small cut to the union. Though they have supported the campaign more generally they have wanted to distance themselves from the boycott.
There are a lot of problems with a consumer boycott. To some extent it individualises action and is often purely symbolic. But this is not the cause of the unions’ worries nor is it the intention of the campaign.
SINALTRAINAL see themselves as part of the international movement against capitalist globalisation and war. There is also the recognition that it will be a whole series of actions that will force changes in the way Coca-Cola conducts its business.
Colombia is not the only place that Coca-Cola has been accused of human rights abuses. In Kerala, India they have been criticized for causing water shortages and pollution with their bottling plant. In the US itself, Coca-Cola distributors have a terrible reputation as poor employers. And in Guatemala in the 1980’s similar tactics of murder and intimidation were used by the company’s bottlers to stop the formation of the union.
It is the example of Guatemala though that really shows the way forward for the campaign. Over a number of years and through three big strikes, including a year long occupation of the factory, the 300 workers were able to get recognition of both their local union and the international food workers union federation. But this victory would not have been possible without the real acts of international solidarity from other Coca-Cola workers. This included several days of strike action in plants around the world.
Having won union support for the campaign in Australia, it now has to move to the next level. The Colombia Demands Justice campaign has said it will be part of the demonstrations against the WTO meeting in Cancun in September. There will be Stop Killer Coke contingents on these demonstrations in Australia.
Equally important will be turning the support voiced by so many trade unions into action. A consumer boycott may not be enough to stop Coca-Cola setting up trade unionists for the death squads, but concerted action by trade unionists has in the past and could again.
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