Coke is it.

http://www2.coca-cola.com/investors/...g_africa.shtml

GMB joins picket for jailed Eritrean unionistsReport by GMB
Published: 14/07/05






The GMB has answered a call from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) for solidarity and support for three jailed trade union leaders in Eritrea.

GMB members and activist will join the official picket at :

10. 30 A. M.
THURSDAY 14TH JULY 2005
ERITREAN EMBASSY
WHITE LION STREET
ISLINGTON
One of the jailed leaders was arrested for his work in organising Coca Cola workers. The GMB organises Coca Cola plants in Luton Bedfordshire.



Martin Smith, GMB Senior Organiser responsible for Britain’s Coca Cola workers said, “GMB is giving its full support to the IUF and the jailed trade unionists in Eritrea. GMB members working for Coca Cola send their support and solidarity for the work being done by their jailed counterparts who are on the front line of the campaign for economic and social justice. I urge everyone to visit the IUF website and send their own message of support.�

Contact: Martin Smith, GMB Senior Organiser on 07974 251722.

Notes to Editors: Visit www.iuf.org for more information. The following is taken from that website.

The IUF is requesting international support for a campaign to free three imprisoned trade union leaders in Eritrea. Tewelde Ghebremedhin, Chairperson of the IUF-affiliated Food, Beverages, Hotels, Tourism, Agriculture and Tobacco Workers Federation and Minase Andezion, secretary of the textile and leather workers’ federation, were arrested by security police on March 30 and remain in detention. According to our information, Brothers Ghebremedhin and Andezion were arrested in the offices of the National Confederation of Eritrean Workers, the national trade union center. On April 9, police arrested Habtom Weldemicael, who heads the Coca-Cola Workers Union and is a member of the food and beverage workers’ federation executive. According to some reports, Weldemicael was urging workers to consider industrial action to defend the catastrophic decline in workers’ living standards. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the three are being held incommunicado without charges beyond the constitutionally mandated 48 hours within which arrested persons must be brought before a magistrate. Reports indicate that they are being held in a secret security prison in Asmara. Eritrea has become increasingly repressive under single-party rule, and the government is using the ongoing conflict with Ethiopia to sow paranoia and further tighten its grip on power. According to Amnesty International (which has also urged action in support of the three imprisoned union leaders), “Human rights violations continue in Eritrea on a massive scale. Thousands of government critics and political opponents - many of them prisoners of conscience who have not used or advocated violence - are detained in secret. Some have been held for several years. None has been taken to court, charged or tried. In some cases, panels of military and police officers have reportedly handed down prison sentences in secret proceedings that flout basic standards of fair trial. Detainees are not informed of the accusations made against them, have no right to defend themselves or be legally represented, and have no recourse to an independent judiciary to challenge abuses of their fundamental rights.� Amnesty says that the use of torture has become “systematic�. These arrests mean that the circle of repression has now widened to include the labour movement. The IUF, the textile and leather workers’ international ITGLWF and the ICFTU have jointly called on ILO Director General Juan Somavia to intervene with the Eritrean authorities to secure the release of the three men. Your support as well is urgently needed.

Second Anniversary of the International Coca-Cola BoycottReport by Colombia Solidarity Campaign
Published: 22/07/05






Friday 22 July 2005
Make Your Feelings Known
Two years ago SINALTRAINAL (the Colombian Food and Drink Workers Union) launched an international boycott of Coca Cola and all its products, in response to a brutal policy of terror and repression that Coca Cola had unleashed against their own workers in Colombia. Since 1994, 8 Coca-Cola workers and SINALTRAINAL union leaders have been assassinated by paramilitaries, who the evidence suggests, were hired by Colombia’s Coca-Cola management. Hundreds of other workers and union members have been imprisoned, tortured, threatened, disappeared or forced into exile.

Individuals and social and trade union organisations all around the world have pledged their support of the boycott (including UNISON, PCS, the Scottish Socialist Party, Stop the War Coalition; plus SOAS, Bristol, Middlesex, Leeds, Sussex, Queens Belfast Universities).

However Coke have refused to abandon their hard line, have refused to negotiate with SINALTRAINAL, and the repression against the workers has continued. Since the boycott started on 22 July 2003,

• Union Vice President Juan Carlos Galvis was injured in an assassination attempt.
  
  
• Union leader Luis Eduardo Garcia’s son escaped from a paramilitary kidnap.
  
  
• 4 members of union leader Efrain Guerrero’s family were slaughtered in their beds by paramilitaries
  
  
• Coke launched their seventh libel case against a SINALTRAINAL leader.

When the union launched the boycott campaign, they knew there would be a price to pay, and are relying on international support and solidarity to see them through to the end of their fight for justice. We have a moral obligation to support the workers of SINALTRAINAL.

SEND PROTEST MESSAGES ON 22 July 2005

On 22 July this year, please send messages of protest to Coca-Cola (an example is included). Fax, email or telephone (or all 3) to make your feelings known.

The addresses are: Tim Wilkinson Director of Public Affairs and Communications Coca-Cola GB. Telephone (020) 8237 3000 Fax (020) 8237 3700. E-mail twilkinson@eur.ko.com

You could also try Customer Complaints which is 0800 227711

Please send a copy plus any response to us at colombia_sc@hotmail.com

[PS News, Materials, Finance:

1. For the latest news of popular resistance to Coke in India see India Resource Center at http://www.indiaresource.org/, and for breaking news from the US see Campaign to Stop Killer Coke at http://www.killercoke.org

2. Order you copy of “The Anti-Coke Manifesto - Why You Should Support the Boycott Campaign� pamphlet £1 and “Killer Cola in Colombia� magazine £1. 50 plus stickers, petitions and leaflets from Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ.

3. We need your donations - make payable to “Colombia Solidarity Campaign� and send to above address.]



Dear Coca- Cola,

The International Boycott of all your products has been going for two years, and people across the world now know about Coca-Cola’s crimes in Colombia. However, I am very worried that instead of negotiating with SINALTRAINAL, Coca-Cola seems to have increased the repression against their Colombian workers. I will continue to boycott all your products, until Coca Cola has

• Publicly recognise that it benefited from crimes carried out by paramilitaries against Coke workers.
  
  
• Committed itself to not making any new attacks on the workers, and hand over to justice those criminals who carried out attacks on their behalf.
  
  
• Negotiated with the union, a code of conduct to safeguard workers’ lives, in the presence of international observers.

Yours Sincerely

Second Anniversary of the International Coca-Cola BoycottReport by Colombia Solidarity Campaign
Published: 22/07/05






Friday 22 July 2005
Make Your Feelings Known
Two years ago SINALTRAINAL (the Colombian Food and Drink Workers Union) launched an international boycott of Coca Cola and all its products, in response to a brutal policy of terror and repression that Coca Cola had unleashed against their own workers in Colombia. Since 1994, 8 Coca-Cola workers and SINALTRAINAL union leaders have been assassinated by paramilitaries, who the evidence suggests, were hired by Colombia’s Coca-Cola management. Hundreds of other workers and union members have been imprisoned, tortured, threatened, disappeared or forced into exile.

Individuals and social and trade union organisations all around the world have pledged their support of the boycott (including UNISON, PCS, the Scottish Socialist Party, Stop the War Coalition; plus SOAS, Bristol, Middlesex, Leeds, Sussex, Queens Belfast Universities).

However Coke have refused to abandon their hard line, have refused to negotiate with SINALTRAINAL, and the repression against the workers has continued. Since the boycott started on 22 July 2003,

• Coke workers in Colombia had to go on hunger strike to fight mass sackings.
  
  
• Union Vice President Juan Carlos Galvis was injured in an assassination attempt.
  
  
• Union leader Luis Eduardo Garcia’s son escaped from a paramilitary kidnap.
  
  
• 4 members of union leader Efrain Guerrero’s family were slaughtered in their beds by paramilitaries
  
  
• Coke launched their seventh libel case against a SINALTRAINAL leader.
  

When the union launched the boycott campaign, they knew there would be a price to pay, and are relying on international support and solidarity to see them through to the end of their fight for justice. We have a moral obligation to support the workers of SINALTRAINAL.

SEND PROTEST MESSAGES ON 22 July 2005

On 22 July this year, please send messages of protest to Coca-Cola (an example is included). Fax, email or telephone (or all 3) to make your feelings known.

The addresses are: Tim Wilkinson Director of Public Affairs and Communications Coca-Cola GB. Telephone (020) 8237 3000 Fax (020) 8237 3700. E-mail twilkinson@eur.ko.com

You could also try Customer Complaints which is 0800 227711

Please send a copy plus any response to us at colombia_sc@hotmail.com

[PS News, Materials, Finance:

1. For the latest news of popular resistance to Coke in India see India Resource Center at www.indiaresource.org/, and for breaking news from the US see Campaign to Stop Killer Coke at www.killercoke.org

2. Order you copy of “The Anti-Coke Manifesto - Why You Should Support the Boycott Campaign� pamphlet £1 and “Killer Cola in Colombia� magazine £1. 50 plus stickers, petitions and leaflets from Colombia Solidarity Campaign, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ.

3. We need your donations - make payable to “Colombia Solidarity Campaign� and send to above address.]



Dear Coca- Cola,

The International Boycott of all your products has been going for two years, and people across the world now know about Coca-Cola’s crimes in Colombia. However, I am very worried that instead of negotiating with SINALTRAINAL, Coca-Cola seems to have increased the repression against their Colombian workers. I will continue to boycott all your products, until Coca Cola has

• Mitigated the pain of the victims by making reparations for damage caused.
  
  
• Publicly recognise that it benefited from crimes carried out by paramilitaries against Coke workers.
  
  
• Committed itself to not making any new attacks on the workers, and hand over to justice those criminals who carried out attacks on their behalf.
  
  
• Negotiated with the union, a code of conduct to safeguard workers’ lives, in the presence of international observers.
  

Yours Sincerely

http://www2.coca-cola.com/investors/...eg_latin.shtml

I guess what I said it was true. Corporations will conquer Africa. SoooFresh, the war has begun..........

I have my own reason to not drink soda period. But any company that discriminates at its headquarters Atlanta, Georgia, United States and goes abroad preaching globalism is definitely going to use any method to make sure they look good to the world and keep their insatiable demanding investor happy and treat their workers who want to unionized for better conditions and treatment as unwanted filth.

I believe South Africa and other parts of Africa are going to have a water crisis just like India did when they let Coca-cola in. 80% of the water before aparthied went to white farmers and their farms. With aparthied over the government will privatize it with World Bank and charge for its use. I know Coca-cola uses the almost best technology to make and deliver their products but with everything their is limits.

For example in India someone reported that it takes 3 liters of water to make 1 liter of Coke. Most of the liters goes to keeping machines water down etc. Coke said they cant cut water use down any further to India and India said that is unacceptable.

With the IMF and WOrld Bank pushing Africa into water privatization, I can see many people suffer unnecessarily because they can't afford water or die trying to fetch water 10's of miles away. They probably had wells but industry and government have used it up or keep them from using it with brutal force. As the machine gets a good 2 liters of water, most people in these straits will have to mooch off their monied relatives to have a sip of this precious commodity.