November 19, 2008 Stop Killer Coke Newsletter
Exposing Coke's Lies About ILO Colombian Probe
Released by The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
Contents
Summary
I. Introduction
II. Coke's Ed Potter Starts Applying Pressure
III. Start of the Scam
IV. Isdell Lies to Shareholders
V. IUF Contradicts Isdell
VI. Coke Finally Admits Deception
VII. UMich Administrators' Damage Control
VIII. ILO Mission Report Is Highly Critical of Coke
IX. Harvard Law Paper: Critical of Coke's LHR Monitoring
Appendix A (April 10, 2006 Letter from Knauss to Slottow)
Appendix B (Excerpts from Mark Thomas's "Belching Out the Devil")
Appendix C (Significant Documents & Videos)
Summary
Both The Coca-Cola Co. and the
University of Michigan are trying to use the United Nations' International
Labor Organization (ILO) Evaluation Mission report to whitewash the
allegations of widespread labor and human rights abuses in Coke bottling
plants in Colombia. Although the report is actually damaging to Coke, it
in
no way touches upon or was meant to be an investigation of human rights
abuse allegations involving Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia as was claimed
by the company since Spring 2006. Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO E. Neville
Isdell stated at Coca-Cola's annual shareholders' meeting in April 2006:
"...we have a document from the ILO, signed by the ILO, committing
themselves to do exactly what you said...We have a document. We have an
agreement, and they are going to investigate past and prior
practices..."
The ILO report and the statements
below prove that The Coca-Cola Company has been lying to the public, the
media and their shareholders. In an April 10, 2006 letter to the
University
of Michigan, Coke claimed: "On March 2nd, the International Union of Food,
Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers'
Associations (IUF) announced that it had requested the International
Labor Organization (ILO) to investigate and evaluate past and present
labor
relations and workers' rights practices of the Coca-Cola bottling
operations in Colombia...Our company supports the IUF in this effort
and, in fact, sent our own request for an investigation to the ILO. On
March 24, the ILO agreed to conduct the investigation and evaluation..."
Coke's claims were contradicted by
the IUF, Coke representatives and the ILO:
1. The IUF never asked for such an investigation.
The IUF's Ron Oswald: "Well, he [Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO E.
Neville Isdell] was wrong, and they know he was wrong...Our proposal to
the
ILO was very clear: we did not ask them to do an investigation into
criminal or murderous events in the 1990s...I don't think they've got the
competence to do that, frankly... There are still calls for Coke to agree
to an independent investigation of those incidents and that's something we
thought Coke should have agreed to many years ago."
2. The Company never supported such an investigation.
Coca-Cola's Dana Bolden wrote: "The agreed-upon scope of the
assessment [in Colombia] was always of current workplace practices."
3. The ILO never agreed to conduct such an investigation.
The ILO's Sally Paxton said: The ILO would at most be carrying out
an "assessment of current working conditions at enterprises in Colombia"
and not an "investigation" of The Coca-Cola Co. or past labor practices or
human rights abuses of its bottlers.
With the release of this report,
Coca-Cola and University of Michigan's integrity are the big losers!
I. Introduction
For 2 1/2 years, The Coca-Cola
Company has fended off criticism of its crimes in Colombia by circulating
a
big lie: that the United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO)
was conducting an investigation and evaluation of past and present
labor
relations and workers' rights practices of Coke bottlers in that
country. In this document, we will explain events that led up to the
ILO's October 2008 report and place them in the context of Coke's
deceptive
public relations policies.
In the Spring of 2005 a Commission
was created to establish a protocol for a truly independent investigation
into charges that Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia were involved in the
systematic intimidation, kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders
organizing for better working conditions. These charges are the basis for
two separate and pending lawsuits, originally filed in 2001 and 2006,
which
are presently working their way through the United States federal court
system.
The lawsuits were filed by the
United Steelworkers union and the International Labor Rights Fund on
behalf
of SINALTRAINAL, the major union representing Colombian Coke workers;
several of its falsely imprisoned members, and the survivors of murdered
union officers Isidro Gil and Adolfo Munera. The well-documented lawsuits
charge that "Coke bottlers in Colombia contracted with or otherwise
directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and
murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union
leaders."
1
II. Coke's Ed Potter Starts Applying
Pressure
Once the Commission began its work,
The Coca-Cola Co., through its Director of Global Labor Relations Ed
Potter, did everything it could to undermine its independence and to quash
consideration of issues raised in the lawsuits.
On August 23, 2005, Commission
member Glen Fichman, Campus Counsel in the Office of the Chancellor of the
University of California, wrote a letter to Potter and SINALTRAINAL
President Javier Correa stating:
As you know, an Independent Investigation Commission, comprised of
representatives from university administrations, United Students Against
Sweatshops, the Workers Rights Consortium, the Fair Labor Association and
the American Center for International Solidarity, has been formed to
oversee an independent investigation into alleged human and labor rights
violations at facilities that bottle and distribute Coca-Cola Company
products in the Republic of Colombia. The Commission has met with
representatives of stakeholders Coca-Cola USA and SINALTRAINAL, and will
be
meeting in September with representatives of stakeholder FEMSA, to advance
the process of planning an investigation to be overseen by the Commission.
Attached is a draft of a proposal for investigation of the Colombia
matter.
We would greatly appreciate it if you would provide your comments on the
proposal...
Potter responded on August 31, 2005
as follows:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the draft protocol...the
suggested revisions are based on our understanding of the purpose and
scope
of the Commission, which work is based on my proposal to administrators
and
students on May 6, 2005 to create a working group through my office to
consider the possibility of conducting an independent third party
assessment of current conditions at Coca-Cola bottling facilities in the
Republic of Colombia...We have substituted the word 'assessment'
throughout
the document for the word 'investigation' as a more neutral dispassionate
word...the assessment team should include an ILO official from the ILO
standards department...We have added a new 2.5 Non-Admissibility and
Non-Discoverability of Assessment Report and Related Items. First, the
parties in the litigation in U.S. court must agree in writing that no
aspect of the assessment is discoverable or admissible or used in any way
in the litigation.
Over the next three months,
Coca-Cola apparently realized that it would be very difficult, if not
impossible, to control the scope of the Commission and that students and
other critics would stick to their demand for a truly independent
investigation into human rights abuse allegations and the past and present
labor policies and practices that allowed the murders to happen and the
abuses to continue.
On December 15, 2005, Potter again
wrote to Glen Fichman:
Last May, in an effort to begin what I expected and hoped would be a
long term relationship with college administrators and students, I offered
to establish a working group under the auspices of Global Labor Relations
at The Coca-Cola Company to discuss, among other things, the feasibility
of
conducting an independent third party assessment on current labor
conditions of bottling operations in Colombia...
Regrettably two things happened: the working group converted to a
Commission and The Coca-Cola Company was asked to leave the
Commission...
...The Coca-Cola Company has made it clear...that the assessment be
on current labor conditions...Without an inadmissability agreement, we
cannot move ahead with the assessment protocol proposed by the
Commission...
Although we have reached an impasse on the Commission's assessment
protocol, we are committed to addressing the concerns of university
administrators and other stakeholders, and are exploring other ways that
we
might be able to conduct a credible, objective, impartial independent
third
party assessment in Colombia...
I serve as the international business spokesman on Application of
Conventions and Recommendations Committee at the annual International
Labor
Organization (ILO) Conference...The Coca-Cola Company believes that the
ILO
recommendations address some of the core issues contributing to the
violence in Colombia...I am as disappointed as you are that we have not
been able to agree to an assessment of the bottlers in Colombia...
At the end of December, both the
University of Michigan and New York University responded to concerns
raised
by students and faculty about Coke's attempts to subvert a meaningful
investigation by announcing the removal of Coke beverages from their
campuses.
III. Start of the Scam
On April 10, 2006, Coke sought to
neutralize protests on campuses and at its forthcoming annual meeting with
a letter from Donald Knauss, then President of Coca-Cola North America, to
University of Michigan administrator Tim Slottow (see Appendix A). With
this letter, Coca-Cola and Ed Potter began a 2 1/2 year plot to perpetrate
a big lie and a public relations scam. Knauss wrote:
On March 2nd, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel,
Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)
announced that it had requested the International Labor Organization
(ILO) to investigate and evaluate past and present labor relations and
workers' rights practices of the Coca-Cola bottling operations in
Colombia...Our company supports the IUF in this effort and, in fact,
sent our own request for an investigation to the ILO.
On March 24, the ILO agreed to conduct the investigation and evaluation
...Questions concerning the ILO investigation and evaluation should be
directed to Ms. Sally Paxton, Executive Director, Social Dialogue
(telephone: 011-41-22-799-6332)...If you would like additional information
about any of these activities, please contact Ed Potter at (404)
676-2379.
It should be noted that Knauss's
letter nowhere mentions Ed Potter's role as chief spokesperson for the
business sector of the ILO.
IV. Isdell Lies to Shareholders
After learning of Knauss's letter,
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke Director Ray Rogers called Sally Paxton at
the
ILO office in Geneva, Switzerland, to ask about the scope and nature of
the
ILO investigation. She told him that the ILO would at most be carrying out
an "assessment of current working conditions at enterprises in Colombia"
and not an "investigation" of The Coca-Cola Co. or past labor practices
or human rights abuses of its bottlers. Rogers recalls that she was
quite emphatic about this. Thus the ILO was already contradicting Ed
Potter's and the Company's previous assertions.
At Coca-Cola's 2006 annual
shareholders' meeting, Rogers also questioned E. Neville Isdell, then CEO
and Chairman of the company, about the exact nature of the ILO
investigation. Isdell responded ( Click to see video):
I said at the outset that this company took all of its corporate
social responsibility requirements very, very seriously. I think to
misconstrue what we're doing with the ILO because we have a document
from the ILO, signed by the ILO, committing themselves to do exactly
what you said. I don't know who Ms Paxton is, but what she said is not
correct. We have a document. We have an agreement, and they are going
to
investigate past and prior practices. You are quoted as saying that
it's a publicity stunt. I can't think that engaging the ILO is a publicity
stunt...
Coca-Cola never responded to
requests for a copy of the document Isdell cited because no such document
or agreement exists. Isdell's words were a complete fabrication, designed
to buy time and deceive the media and the public. Three other high-level
officials of the ILO have also contradicted Coca-Cola officials and
spokespersons.
The long awaited report,
"Report Evaluation Mission Coca-Cola Bottling Plants in Colombia 30 June -
11 July 2008," released in October, does indeed examine only current
practices while ignoring past and prior ones. Unfortunately, no one at the
ILO has ever been willing to publicly criticize Coca-Cola for
misrepresenting the ILO's agreed-upon role. Nonetheless, the report has
been hailed by University of Michigan administrator Greg Tewksbury as a
positive reflection upon The Coca-Cola Company, even though Coca-Cola
brazenly broke its word to the university. He also ignored criticism of
Coke's current labor relations policies and practices in Colombia that are
contained in the report.
V. IUF Contradicts Isdell
In the book "Belching Out the
Devil" (Ebury Press, 2008) by British social critic and journalist Mark
Thomas, there is an interview with Ron Oswald, general secretary of the
International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF) about Neville
Isdell's and Coke's claims that the ILO was conducting an investigation
into past and present labor practices and human rights abuses at the IUF's
and Coke's request (see Appendix B):
Ron [Oswald] reacted to Neville Isdell's statement saying, 'Well,
he was wrong, and they know he was wrong...Our proposal to the ILO was
very clear: we did not ask them to do an investigation into criminal or
murderous events in the 1990s...I don't think they've got the competence
to
do that, frankly...There are still calls for Coke to agree to an
independent investigation of those incidents and that's something we
thought Coke should have agreed to many years ago.'
Like the ILO, Ron Oswald and the
IUF never challenged Coke's lies or its 2 1/2-year public relations scam.
VI. Coke Finally Admits Deception
In September 2008, Montana
filmmaker Matt Beard received a letter from Dana Bolden of The Coca-Cola
Co. stating that "the agreed-upon scope of the assessment [in Colombia]
was
always of current workplace practices." This was the first time that a
Coke
representative admitted that the company knew the ILO had never agreed to
the type of investigation that students and administrators demanded at
Commission meetings three years earlier.
Bolden's admission is extremely
significant because it was this false claim that the ILO would investigate
past and present labor relations and workers' rights practices that
prompted University of Michigan administrator Tim Slottow to unilaterally
bring Coke products back on campus and led to similarbut unsuccessful
- efforts by administrators at New York University.
Consider what happened at a June
2007 ILO meeting in Geneva. The Sydney (Australia) Morning
Herald
(6/6/07) reported: "Employers led by a Coca-Cola executive [Ed Potter]
stopped the International Labour Organisation examining violations of
workplace rights in Colombia..." At this meeting, Potter's job was to
shield Colombia and Coca-Cola from any real scrutiny at a time when the
Colombian government's and multinational corporations' ties to
paramilitary
death squads that prey on workers and their unions were receiving more
attention than ever before in the international media.
VII. UMich Administrators' Damage
Control
After the ILO released its report,
administrators at the University of Michigan continued running
interference
for Coca-Cola with a self-serving news release stating:
"The assessment was a thorough, independent evaluation," Greg
Tewksbury, interim associate vice president for finance and University
treasurer, says of the report released Oct. 13. "Among the conclusions was
recognition of The Coca-Cola Company's efforts to prohibit child labor,
ensure equality and non-discrimination, and provide health and safety
programs
Additionally, the University is pleased that Coca-Cola and its
bottling plants will address the ILO report recommendations as they
continue to examine labor practices in their Colombia bottling plants."
Concerning the child labor issue,
Coke's culpability - exposed by Human Rights Watch in 2004 and in a
British TV documentary that contains 2007 footage of children working in
the cane fields of Coke's sugar suppliers in El Salvador - might have
been more apparent to Tewksbury had he recalled the part of the ILO report
that stated:
The Mission interviewed the company
representatives to ascertain whether they exercised any control of
suppliers of raw materials (such as sugar) to ensure that they did not use
child labor. The manager at the Coke plant in Cali said that their
suppliers should not use child labor, but added "that the enterprise
[Coca-Cola] did not yet exercise oversight over this issue."
Tewksbury failed to mention that 20
Michigan campus groups had formed a coalition to demand that the
University's Dispute Review Board remove Coke products from the campus; he
writes that only one organization, Students Organizing for Labor and
Economic Equality, lodged a formal complaint against Coca-Cola. And it
took
a single letter based on a lie from Donald Knauss to convince one UMich
administrator to reverse a democratically arrived-at decision.
At the NYU School of Law, the
organization Law Students for Economic Justice wrote in opposition to an
administration push to bring Coke back on campus:
The NYU resolution to ban the sale of Coke products "demanded an
independent investigation into allegations of The Coca-Cola Company's
complicity in human rights violations" in Colombia... "Independent"
must
mean free from the company's influence...if independence is to mean
anything, the party being investigated cannot itself be part of
conducting the investigation and reporting the results. For several
reasons, the ILO is not in a position to act as an independent
investigator...
Coke's Director of Global Relations Ed Potter has held the powerful
role of U.S. employer representative to the ILO for over 15 years, and has
been instrumental in requesting ILO involvement.
The ILO is [comprised of] 1/2 government, 1/4 business and 1/4 labor
[representatives]... The first two constituencies regularly form a
super-majority, eliminating the voice of workers, which would be essential
to any investigation...
The ILO does not conduct human rights investigation of individual
companies and is not qualified to do so...
A letter that NYU sent to Coke a few months prior to the 2005
resolution sheds some light on the meaning of 'independent.' The letter
specifically demanded that The Coca-Cola Company submit to an
investigation
into its relevant operations in Colombia by the Workers Rights Consortium,
a non-profit organization created by students, labor rights experts, and
workers from across the globe with participation from college and
university administrators. Coke refused, citing an investigation that it
claimed was independent but that the Senate decided was not credible. The
University Senate then responded by voting to institute the current
ban.
VIII. ILO Mission Report Is Highly Critical of
Coke
The ILO report contradicts
Coca-Cola when it describes the scope of what the ILO had agreed to: "The
Coca-Cola management and the International Union of Food, Agricultural,
Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations
(IUF)
jointly requested the International Labour Office (ILO), in 2006, to carry
out an evaluation Mission of conditions of work and labour relations in
certain Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia."
The ILO report highlights many
serious labor relations issues that Coca-Cola and its bottlers can no
longer hide:
the Mission found that there appears to be a link between
outsourcing and the fall in union membership and/or the fact that these
workers do not organize.
One union representative (SINTRAINDEGA), from the Bogota South plant,
said that "with the company's hiring system, the union is destined to
disappear... In the space of one year we have lost 100 members." [Another
union,] USITRAG, said: "The main problem is that very few have a direct
relationship with the enterprise. This is due to the way in which the
enterprise hires workers who provide certain services; the problem is the
high incidence of subcontracting. Because of this workers are unable to
organize and the future of the union is in danger."
The SINALTRAINAL representatives in the same plant agreed, observing
that "Union membership has been decimated as a result of various ploys
used
by the enterprise such as the reinforcement of the accord [collective
accords are agreements between employers and non-union workers]. All the
unions are dwindling because the enterprise is standing in their way
"
The outsourcing of certain areas of the operation processes and,
increasingly, of the production processes themselves, makes it difficult
for the workers concerned to form or join unions
On October 6, 2008, Coke repeated
the usual nonsense:
The ILO has completed its independent evaluation of Coca-Cola
bottling operations in Colombia. The report states everything suggests
that
conditions of work applicable to direct employees are duly
respected, to the extent that they are regulated by legal instruments,
collective agreements or accords.
The report found that Coca-Cola bottlers are upholding labor standards
that have been ratified in Colombia, including confirming that workers
enjoy freedom of association, a work atmosphere free of anti-union
intimidation and a safe working environment.
Direct employees, it should be
understood, represent a very small percentage of Coke's workforce in
Colombia. Coke has lied and misled the public about the percentage of
Coke workers in its Colombian bottling plants who are represented by
unions. Since August 2005 the company has claimed that: "...more than
30 percent of Coca-Cola System workers in Colombia are unionized, in a
country where the average for all companies is about four percent...and
[The Coca-Cola System] employs approximately 8,000 people."
However, Coca-Cola doesn't consider
the vast majority of Coke workers in Colombia to be employees, but rather
"flexible," subcontracted workers who cannot get union representation,
receive low pay and meager benefits (if any) and have no job security or
future with the company. In fact only a tiny percentage of Coke's workers
in Colombia belong to unions. In 2007, two groups of subcontract
workers
attempted to join SINALTRAINAL, but the bottlers responded with mass
firings.
In his booklet, "The Anti-Coke
Manifesto," Andy Higginbottom, an instructor at England's Kingston
University, estimates that "by the beginning of 2005, less than a thousand
workers had stable employment contracts. The workforce employed in the
'Coca-Cola system' in Colombia is still nearly ten thousand workers, but
90% of these are now 'flexible' workers ..."
For Coca-Cola, outsourcing is
obviously a way to bust unions and create "union-free environments."
Upon release of the ILO's 2008
report, the IUF also raised concerns about Coca-Cola's current labor
practices. It said:
Two major areas of concern pointed to in the report point to
systematic pressure on basic union rights...
The first is the existence of a system of dependent company-sponsored
labour relations through company-established worker structures [accords]
competing with union representation, often with the explicit support of
plant management. This system of parallel structures - similar to the
destructive "Soldarismo" system in some Central American countries -
aims to deny company employees fair and full access to union rights.
The second is the extensive use of outsourcing and other forms of
precarious employment prevalent throughout Colombia and increasingly in
the
globalized economy. The report shows how by outsourcing many activities
which are core to the operations of the bottlers, the companies
systematically deny and restrict the ability of those workers to exercise
their rights to join a union of their choice."
The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke
has always challenged Coke's official line that there was going to be an
"independent investigation."
Until Dana Bolden's recent belated
confession that "the agreed-upon scope of the assessment [in Colombia] was
always of current workplace practices," the company always lied
about it. Although this report is an indictment of Coca-Cola's current
labor practices, the world is still waiting for an independent
investigation of past and present human rights and labor abuses against
unionists involving Coke bottlers and management in Colombia.
IX. Harvard Law Paper: Critical of Coke's LHR
Monitoring
Aaron Bernstein, a veteran writer
on labor affairs for BusinessWeek who is currently a Wertheim
Fellow
at Harvard Law School, published a paper in September 2008 called
"Incorporating Labor and Human Rights Risk Into Investment Decisions."
In his discussion of a growing
"movement to include corporate environmental, social and governance
behavior into portfolio and lending decisions" and "the risks posed by
company decisions affecting labor and human rights [abbreviated LHR],"
Bernstein bemoans "the lack of objective and quantitative data available
about corporate activities in these areas." Excerpts from Bernstein's
paper
serve as a fitting conclusion for our discussion:
In January 2007, the [Coca-Cola] company released a Workplace Rights
Policy and Human Rights Statement as part of its [United Nations Global]
Compact commitment. The policy and statement assert that Coke follows the
Compact's LHR principles for its wholly-owned manufacturing operations,
which produce 17 percent of the company's production. However, the review
gives no hard data about how the principles have been implemented, whether
any violations have been uncovered, and what if anything might have been
done to correct them...
Coke's review is ambiguous about the application of its LHR policies to
the suppliers that produce the other 83 percent of its output. Unlike many
multinationals, Coke has significant partial ownership of most of its
bottling suppliers...
Although the Compact holds up Coke's report as exemplary, it offers
virtually nothing investors can use to assess the long-term LHR risks of
buying its stock. The review states that the company and its "bottling
investments," which presumably means its partially owned suppliers,
employed 71,000 around the world at the end of 2007. It doesn't say what
percent work for the parent company as compared to its suppliers. It gives
no description of its LHR auditing process for either group. A factory may
be audited once a year for ten minutes by outside groups with no
experience
in LHR. The audits may be announced in advance to the factory managers, a
practice widely criticized by labor and human rights groups...
Nor does the review quantify any results about what its 1,029 audits
produced. LHR violations could be rampant or virtually nonexistent, they
could have doubled or halved between 2005 and 2006, the company could have
attempted to deal with any problems it found in any factory, or with none.
Essentially, investors learn virtually nothing about Coke's LHR risks,
other than the company has adopted a variety of ambiguously explained
policies to deal with them that may apply to some or all employees...
Bernstein also notes that
"allegations that a supplier bottler in Colombia conspired with
paramilitary groups to intimidate union activists there and was complicit
in the deaths of eight union leaders...led to widespread student boycotts
in the United States..."
Coca-Cola's failure to address the events in Colombia that led to the
pending lawsuits, campus bans, boycotts and public outrage is still a
festering scandal. The same should be said about the lies Coke has foisted
upon a world all too willing to believe them.
For questions about the report,
call Ray Rogers or Lew Friedman at the Campaign at (718)
852-2808
# # #
Appendix A
PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL
COCA-COLA PLAZA
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
ADDRESS REPLY TO
P.O. DRAWER 1734
ATLANTA, GA 30301
April 10, 2006
Mr. Tim Slottow
Executive Vice President & CFO
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Dear Mr. Slottow:
The Coca-Cola Company has always worked to conduct business responsibly
and ethically. We have long been committed to enriching the workplace,
preserving and protecting the environment, and strengthening the
communities where we operate. I want to update you about a number of
important new initiatives we are implementing to address and respond to
the
concerns about our operations in Colombia and India.
On March 2nd, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel,
Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)
announced that it requested the International Labor Organization (ILO) to
investigate and evaluate past and present labor relations and workers'
rights practices of the Coca-Cola bottling operations in Colombia. As you
may know, the ILO is a specialized multilateral organization within the
United Nations that is responsible for establishing international labor
standards. The IUF is a global union federation that represents the
majority of Coca-Cola system union workers. Our Company supports the IUF
in
this effort and, in fact, sent our own request for an investigation to the
ILO.
On March 24, the ILO agreed to conduct the investigation and evaluation
and is beginning the process of finalizing its scope, protocol and timing
The ILO, as a UN agency, has full control over these details and we are
committed to full cooperation. Questions concerning the ILO investigation
and evaluation should be directed to Ms. Sally Paxton, Executive Director,
Social Dialogue (telephone: 011-41-22-799-6332).
We are in active dialogue with TERI, a highly respected Delhi-based NGO
with deep experience on sustainability issues to develop a transparent and
impartial independent third party assessment of water resource management
practices at Coca-Cola company facilities in India, including potential
contamination due to agricultural practices. This assessment will involve
respected independent environmental experts and the findings will be
communicated jointly to the University of Michigan and The Coca-Cola
Company. Specific details and the work plan for the India assessment will
be finalized and communicated no later than the 30th of April.
Additionally, we are finalizing our global worker rights policy and
expect to share it publicly in May.
Each of these actions is an important part of our commitment to strong
global leadership in the areas of human rights, labor rights, and
protection of the environment. We will continue to keep you informed of
our
progress in each area. If you would like additional information about any
of these activities, please contact Ed Potter at (404) 676-2379.
Sincerely,
Donald R. Knauss
President
Coca-Cola North America
Read original of this
letter-page1
Read original of
this letter-page 2
# # #
Appendix B
Excerpts from "Belching Out the Devil: Global adventures with
Coca-Cola," By Mark Thomas, pages 311-314:
"...The International Labor
Organisation is a UN body that exists to promote labour and human rights.
It is made up of representatives from government, employers and trade
unions. After coming under pressure from the University of Michigan
student
body...Coca-Cola agreed to approach the ILO with the International Union
of
Foodworkers to ask that they conduct an assessment of workplace practices
in Coke's bottling plants in Colombia. The ILO announced their intention
to
do so on 24 March 2006.
The problem with this is that the
Company have somewhat used the promised ILO assessment as a fig leaf to
hide behind when questions are raised about the assassinations, when in
fact the ILO is only assessing current labour practices and will not
consider the assassinations or any of the allegations of complicity by the
bottling plant managers. Which is why Ray is claiming, 'The ILO
investigation is a scam. You know it, I know it, The Coca-Cola Company
knows it.'
'I absolutely disagree' says Ed
Potter emphatically.
'It's a scandal,' decries Ray
raising his hands to the heavens, oblivious to the fact that the passing
shareholders are turning to stare at him. 'There is no investigation being
done.'
Ed Potter replies, 'Well we've
never represented that the ILO was going to do an investigation.'
This is an unfortunate thing to
say, as inside the annual meeting, just metres away from where we are
standing, staff are issuing a printed company statement on Colombia, in
which The Coca-Cola Company describes the ILO assessment as an
'investigation' on three occasions in five lines of text. This, they claim
is 'fulfilling our commitment to an independent, impartial third-party
investigation and evaluation,' though it fails to mention Ed Potter is the
US Employer Delegate on the ILO. The body that just happens to be
conducting this particular 'independent and impartial' assessment.
Unfortunately Ed Potter is also
contradicted by his boss the current chairman and former CEO, Neville
Isdell, who said at the Company Annual Meeting for shareholders in 2006:
'We have a document. From the ILO
signed by ILO...We have a document. We have an agreement and they are
going
to investigate past and prior practices...We think we have gone to the
most
credible people that can possibly be found in the world to look at what
has
happened in Colombia.' sig
Just to further clarify matters I
talked to the General Secretary of the International Union of Foodworkers,
Ron Oswald - this is the person who negotiated with Coke and then the ILO
to get the assessment. Ron reacted to Neville Isdell's statement saying,
'Well, he was wrong, and they know he was wrong, but clearly once that
cat's out the bag, that cat's out the bag. Our proposal to the ILO was
very
clear: we did not ask them to do an investigation into criminal or
murderous events in the1990s...I don't think they've got the competence to
do that, frankly.'
In case there is any lingering
doubt Ron Oswald says 'there are still calls for Coke to agree to an
independent investigation of those incidents and that's something we
thought Coke should have agreed to many years ago.' So obviously the ILO
assessment is not that 'independent investigation'.
There was never going to be an
investigation into past practices of Coke bottling plants in Colombia by
the ILO. So I asked Coca-Cola if they would publish or let me see the
document Neville Isdell alleges the ILO had given the Company, to see how
such a prominent captain of industry could be so confused. After all it is
probably not a good idea to tell untruths and give false information to
shareholders at an annual meeting...They ignored my question.
# # #
Appendix C
Significant Documents and Videos
Report: Evaluation Mission Coca-Cola Bottling Plants in Colombia (30
June-11 July 2008)
Coke CEO Isdell
Lies about ILO "investigation" at 2006 Annual Meeting
Coke's CEO
Isdell Caught in "Inaccuracies" About Time
DISPATCHES: Mark Thomas on Coca-Cola
Mark Thomas on
'Belching Out the Devil'
Mark Thomas read
from his new book-Part 1
Mark Thomas read
from his new book-Part 2
Mark Thomas
read from his new book-Part 3
Coca-Cola
2008 Annual Meeting of Shareowners Webcast (You may have to register.)
Coca-Cola
2007 Annual Meeting of Shareowners Webcast
Coca-Cola
2006 Annual Meeting of Shareowners Webcast
Coca-Cola
2005 Annual Meeting of Shareowners Webcast
Matt
Beard: "The Cost of a Coke"
NYC fact-finding
delegation's report on human rights violations by Coke - Final Report, NYC
Council Member Hiram Monserrate, April 2004
Appendices for
Monserrate Report
Andy
Higginbottom, "The Anti-Coke Manifesto"
# # #
Campaign to Stop
KILLER COKE
We are seeking your help to stop a gruesome cycle of murders,
kidnappings, and torture of union leaders and organizers involved in daily
life-and-death struggles at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, South
America.
"If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union,
next our jobs and then our lives." SINALTRAINAL VIce President Juan Carlos
Galvis
Please
donate to the Campaign.
Learn the truth about The Coca-Cola
Co. "We believe the evidence shows that Coca-Cola
and its corporate network are rife with immorality, corruption and
complicity in murder."
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke/Corporate
Campaign,
Inc. Director Ray Rogers
Visit www.KillerCoke.org
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