COCA COLA TRY TO KILL AGAIN
CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA COLA | 14.09.2003 14:18 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | London | World
Child of Sinaltrainal leader and Coca Cola worker tortured.
Attacks and threats continue against Sinaltrainal members and their children.
On the 10 September 2003 at 1pm in the Boulevard Simon Bolivar, four unknown men, their faces covered by hoods, stopped DAVID JOSE CARRANZA CALLE, the 15 year old son of National Sinaltrainal leader and Coca Cola worker LIMBERTO CARRANZA, forced him off his bicycle, and bundled him into a white truck. They drove away with him and tortured him, asking him over and over where his father was. At about 4.30pm they dumped him in a place known as “Cañon de la Ahuyama” where he was found by a man who alerted the police.
At the same time, Limberto Carranza received a phone call at his house, saying “son of a bitch trade unionist, we’re going to get you, and if we don’t get you, we’ll blow up your house.”
This is yet another outrage to add to the long list of murders, death threats, forced displacements, arbitrary detentions, mass sackings and attempted murders, the most recent of which was the attempt against the life of JUAN CARLOS GALVIS, vice president of Sinaltrainal in Barrancabermeja, and the threats and intimidation that we continue to receive all over the country. This renewal of the criminal offensive against the workers coincides with our resistance, started on 9 September 2003, to the actions of Coca Cola Femsa SA who just like in the years 2000 and 2001, have been locking workers in hotels and work places, pressurising them to renounce their work contracts and take redundancy. They have used blackmail and psychological terrorism, threatening dismissal as in the cases of Pedro Andrade and Sergio Silva, sacked today in Cucuta. Furthermore, Coca Cola have illegally converted their bottling plants in Monteria, Cartagena, Valledupar, Cucuta, Barrancabermeja, Pereira, Neiva, Villavicencio and Duitame into distribution centres.
This new attack by Coca Cola Femsa SA is part of their strategy of cost reduction, subcontracting, union busting and the non recognition of collective agreements, in order to concentrate production in a minimal number of “mega plants” with fewer workers. We have said for many years that the company was preparing the way for this attack on the workers, and now it is enjoying the benefits that Alvaro Uribe Velez is delivering through globalisation and the FTAA.
It has been shown once again, that to contain the disastrous policies of this multinational, it is necessary, today more than ever, to support the international campaign against Coca Cola, the boycott of its products, disinvestment and permanent protest to guarantee that the company does not succeed in its objective of bringing its products from other towns or possibly even other countries, maintaining its market, increasing profits and throwing thousands of families onto the streets.
Despite all the aggression, Sinaltrainal and the workers continue their resistance. We find ourselves in a labour dispute, and as such are in a constant mobilisation and public denouncement, until coca cola see fit to find a solution to the proposal for compensation which was presented to them last 22 January to relieve some of the damages they have caused their victims.
AGAINST THE POLICY OF EXTERMINATION OF WORKERS, INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA COLA.
www.sinaltrainal.org
Attacks and threats continue against Sinaltrainal members and their children.
On the 10 September 2003 at 1pm in the Boulevard Simon Bolivar, four unknown men, their faces covered by hoods, stopped DAVID JOSE CARRANZA CALLE, the 15 year old son of National Sinaltrainal leader and Coca Cola worker LIMBERTO CARRANZA, forced him off his bicycle, and bundled him into a white truck. They drove away with him and tortured him, asking him over and over where his father was. At about 4.30pm they dumped him in a place known as “Cañon de la Ahuyama” where he was found by a man who alerted the police.
At the same time, Limberto Carranza received a phone call at his house, saying “son of a bitch trade unionist, we’re going to get you, and if we don’t get you, we’ll blow up your house.”
This is yet another outrage to add to the long list of murders, death threats, forced displacements, arbitrary detentions, mass sackings and attempted murders, the most recent of which was the attempt against the life of JUAN CARLOS GALVIS, vice president of Sinaltrainal in Barrancabermeja, and the threats and intimidation that we continue to receive all over the country. This renewal of the criminal offensive against the workers coincides with our resistance, started on 9 September 2003, to the actions of Coca Cola Femsa SA who just like in the years 2000 and 2001, have been locking workers in hotels and work places, pressurising them to renounce their work contracts and take redundancy. They have used blackmail and psychological terrorism, threatening dismissal as in the cases of Pedro Andrade and Sergio Silva, sacked today in Cucuta. Furthermore, Coca Cola have illegally converted their bottling plants in Monteria, Cartagena, Valledupar, Cucuta, Barrancabermeja, Pereira, Neiva, Villavicencio and Duitame into distribution centres.
This new attack by Coca Cola Femsa SA is part of their strategy of cost reduction, subcontracting, union busting and the non recognition of collective agreements, in order to concentrate production in a minimal number of “mega plants” with fewer workers. We have said for many years that the company was preparing the way for this attack on the workers, and now it is enjoying the benefits that Alvaro Uribe Velez is delivering through globalisation and the FTAA.
It has been shown once again, that to contain the disastrous policies of this multinational, it is necessary, today more than ever, to support the international campaign against Coca Cola, the boycott of its products, disinvestment and permanent protest to guarantee that the company does not succeed in its objective of bringing its products from other towns or possibly even other countries, maintaining its market, increasing profits and throwing thousands of families onto the streets.
Despite all the aggression, Sinaltrainal and the workers continue their resistance. We find ourselves in a labour dispute, and as such are in a constant mobilisation and public denouncement, until coca cola see fit to find a solution to the proposal for compensation which was presented to them last 22 January to relieve some of the damages they have caused their victims.
AGAINST THE POLICY OF EXTERMINATION OF WORKERS, INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA COLA.
www.sinaltrainal.org
CAMPAIGN AGAINST COCA COLA