SANA joins Coca-Cola Boycott
 

Below is the full text of an ongoing email exchange between SANA President Jeff Masovsky and Coca-Cola company representatives. The original resolution and discussion comments may be viewed here.

Date:   June 24, 2006

To: Ed Potter, Director of Global Labor Relations
       Neville Isdell, CEO

From:  Jeff Maskovsky, President
            Society for the Anthropology of North America

 Subject: Boycott of Coca Cola Products

The purpose of this memo is to apprise you of action taken by our society to boycott Coca-Cola products because of the company's complicity in the violation of human and labor rights in Colombia and elsewhere.  The exact wording of a resolution, passed at our annual spring meeting in April 2006, is included below.

 SANA has already imposed a ban on Coca-cola products at our April meeting.

 Thank you.

 
RESOLUTION REGARDING A BOYCOTT OF COCA-COLA PRODUCTS

 WHEREAS, trade unionists at Coca-Cola plants in Colombia have been assassinated, harassed, and intimidated by right-wing paramilitaries, and

 WHEREAS, the wives, children, and relatives of SINALTRAINAL leaders have been targeted by these paramilitaries, and

 WHEREAS, eyewitness accounts and other evidence support the conclusion that company personnel have organized the murder and intimidation of Coca-Cola workers, and

 WHEREAS, paramilitary groups operate unhindered, and often in collusion, with the government and foreign corporations as an anti-union force, and

 WHEREAS, the U.S. government provides billions of dollars to the Colombian government in mostly military aid, and

 WHEREAS, these actions deprive Colombian workers of their internationally recognized rights to organize into unions and bargain collectively, and

 WHEREAS, no professional organization of social scientists concerned with labor and human rights should offer its credibility to the Coca-Cola Company by distributing its products,

 BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA)

1) will ban all Coca-Cola products from its functions and annual meetings,

 2) calls upon the American Anthropological Association to do the same, and further calls upon the AAA to provide quarterly updates directly to its membership describing the efforts the Association has taken to enforce this ban at all of its functions and at its annual meetings,

3) communicate to the Coca-Cola Company that until the situation involving SINALTRAINAL is resolved and the safety and rights of workers in its bottling plants in Colombia and worldwide are protected, SANA will support SINALTRAINAL’s boycott of the Coca-Cola Company and do all it can to publicize the boycott, and

4) demand that the Coca-Cola Company a) make a public declaration in Colombia that paramilitary violence against unionists must stop, b) create a company policy against collaboration with paramilitaries, c) establish a human rights ombudsman in every plant, and d) provide compensation to the victims, and

5) call upon the United States government to stop military aid to the Colombian government until the perpetrators of human rights crimes are held accountable.

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(Message forwarded to Kari Bjorhus on 06/25/06)

Date:   June 26, 2006

To: Jeff Maskovsky, President
       Society for the Anthropology of North America
cc:  Ed Potter

From:  Kari Bjorhus, Director, Public Affairs

Subject: SANA boycott of Coca Cola products

 Dear Mr. Maskovsky:

 We received your email and were sorry to hear that the Society of the Anthropology for North America has decided to boycott The Coca-Cola Company's products.  We are disappointed that your organization did not contact us prior to passing this resolution. 

 We want you to know that we share your concerns regarding the violence against trade unionists in Colombia, but I can assure you that the allegations claiming that our bottlers have engaged in anti-union violence are absolutely false.

Our Company and the Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia have frequently and publicly condemned all acts of violence against workers in Colombia in various ways, including in local advertisements and press statements.  We deplore and condemn all acts of violence committed by any paramilitary group in Colombia that targets trade union leaders or any other group.  Further, SINALTRAINAL has refused a request from our company to join us in issuing a joint anti-violence statement.

§        Two different judicial inquiries in Colombia – one in a Colombian Court and one by the Colombian Attorney General – found no evidence to support the allegations that bottler management conspired to intimidate or threaten trade unionists.

 §        In Colombia, a country where fewer than four percent of workers are union members, about 31 percent of workers in independent Coca-Cola bottling plants are represented by one of the 12 Colombian unions with which the Colombian Coca-Cola bottlers have ongoing, normal relations.

§        Through collective bargaining agreements and their own initiative, Coca-Cola bottlers work with unions and the government to provide emergency cell phones, transportation to and from work, secure housing and a host of other measures to protect employees.  Additional security measures are routinely provided to union leaders.

§        A hot line for employees was established in 2003 for bottling plant workers to confidentially call a third party to report any concerns or complaints 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Dilo Complaint System was introduced to facilitate the detection of improper practices and/or conducts inconsistent with the Code of Business Ethics.  Operated by a specialized external company, calls are received by trained personnel and make it possible to have secure communication with the informant, to keep him/her informed about the action taken.

§        The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), the global federation of unions that represents the majority of union workers in the Coca-Cola system, unanimously rejected calls for a Coca-Cola boycott.  In its rejection, the IUF said:  “Sweeping, unsubstantiated allegations and assertions of the type found in the boycott appeal do nothing to help the cause of the unions that organize and represent Coca-Cola workers around the world, the majority of which are members of the IUF.” 

§        Among other unions not supporting the boycott are SICO, Sinaltrainbec, Asotragaseosas and CUT (the National Federation of Trade Unions), all in Colombia.

§        In the UK, a motion to boycott Coca-Cola on college campuses was overwhelmingly defeated in a vote at the National Union of Students (NUS) Annual Conference in March of this year.

§        Individual trade unions, Amicus, TGWU and GMB, as well as the umbrella organization for trade unions in the UK, the TUC, do not support the call for a boycott.  In an open joint-letter to NUS delegates the general secretaries of the trade unions wrote: "Since the first call to boycott Coca-Cola over Colombia was issued in 2003, the UK trade union movement has investigated and monitored the situation closely... Since 2003, no evidence has been provided to link Coca-Cola to the assassination of its workers in Colombia. We do not believe that a boycott of Coca-Cola would contribute in any way to saving lives or achieving a just and lasting peace in Colombia." 

In Colombia and around the world, our Company and our bottling partners have global standards for a safe, fair and inclusive environment for all employees.  We comply with all applicable labor and employment laws where we do business.   We also have a commitment to equal opportunity, fair and inclusive management practices and to creating a work environment free of discrimination.  Additionally, we fully respect our employees’ rights to join or not join labor unions, and we work to ensure that those rights are exercised freely and without fear of retaliation or intimidation.

We recognize that some people still have concerns about the labor practices of the Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia, and for that reason, we have agreed to a fair and impartial assessment of the bottling operations in Colombia.

This March the International Labor Organization of the United Nations agreed to conduct an independent and impartial investigation and evaluation of the labor relations and workers’ rights practices of Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia.  The ILO is the ideal organization to complete this investigation and evaluation based on its unimpeachable record as an advocate for workers’ rights, its authority with respect to international labor standards and its tripartite structure which balances representation from government, workers and employers.   The Coca-Cola Company and the Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia will cooperate fully with the ILO assessment team. 

I hope that you will reconsider your resolution regarding our products.   If you would provide your phone number, I would very much like to call you and discuss this in more depth.  I also would appreciate the opportunity to meet with your board of directors to discuss this topic. 

Kind regards,
Kari Bjorhus

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Date:   June 27, 2006

To: Kari Bjorhus

From:  Jeff Maskovsky

Re: SANA boycott of Coca Cola products

Dear Kari,

Thank you for your email message.  I forwarded it to the SANA board.  The board has responded that it would be happy to organize a forum on anti-union violence in Colombia and elsewhere, to be held at the AAA annual meetings in San Jose in November, and to invite you to participate in it.  In the interest of fairness, we would also invite representatives from SINALTRAINAL, USAS, ILRF and/or Corporate Campaign as well.  I assume this would not be a problem.

We look forward to hearing from you.  I am traveling for the rest of the summer.  It is best to reach me by email.

Best,
Jeff Maskovsky

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Date:   July 5, 2006

To: Jeff Maskovsky

From:  Kari Bjorhus

Re: SANA boycott of Coca Cola products

Dear Jeff,

As I mentioned in the earlier email, the International Labor Organization of the United Nations has agreed to conduct an independent and impartial investigation and evaluation of the labor relations and workers’ rights practices of Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia, which will be completed this year.  We believe that an investigation and evaluation by an authority with the ILO’s unimpeachable credentials in matters of this nature will produce a report whose conclusions will be credible to all concerned parties.   Because this objective process is already under way,  we don't believe that additional public debates on the allegations will result in any real progress in resolving the issues that have been raised.   For this reason, we respectfully decline your invitation to participate in the forum you described.

The ongoing violence in Colombia is a serious issue and many initiatives and organizations are focused on trying to bring peace to that country.  On July 24, the UN Global Compact, the Colombian NGO Fundación Ideas para la Paz and the International Business Leaders Forum will issue a report entitled  "Business, Peace & Development in Colombia  An Agenda for Corporate Action".  A forum on that same day will bring together key actors in Colombia: the Uribe Government, civil society, Colombian companies, and leading multinationals to talk about the role of the private sector in peace-building in Colombia.  Similar forums will be held in September in New York and London.

The Coca-Cola Company is supporting these initiatives.  Should you or your colleagues be interested in attending, I would be happy to ask the IBLF to extend an invitation. 

Kind regards,
Kari Bjorhus

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Date:   July 5, 2006

To: Kari Bjorhus

From:  Jeff Maskovsky

Re: SANA boycott of Coca Cola products

Dear Kari,

Thank you for your message.  I am not quite sure that I understand your position, however.  Further public debate on this issue is not necessary, you tell me, so you will not come to our forum.  But you extend an invitation to me and my colleagues to a series of forum you are supporting.  Given your reasons for declining our invitation, I must presume that the forums you are supporting will have no public debate.  As citizens and concerned scholars, we believe that public deliberation and the free exchange of ideas and opinions are the cornerstone to our democracy.  We are sad to see that the Coca Cola Company does not share our commitment to these core democratic values.

 But more to the point, it is unlikely that SANA's board and membership will agree to end our boycott of your products if you won't at the very least come to address us.  We next meet as a group in San Jose in November.  I hope you will reconsider and accept our invitation.  We promise to give your point of view a fair hearing.

 Have a good summer. 

Best regards,
Jeff Maskovsky

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