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| Coca-Cola's Ed Potter Prevents Colombia From Making ILO 'Most Wanted List' |
| Thursday, 10 June 2010 21:49 |
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On Monday, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) announced its annual findings regarding global anti-union violence. Again, Colombia topped this list as the trade union murder capital of the world, accounting for 48 union killings out of the 100 union killings around the world. See ITUC report As the ITUC reports, 22 of those Colombian unionists killed were "senior union leaders," while five of those killed were women. Meanwhile, Colombia's largest union confederation, the United Workers Central (CUT), announced that the business sector of the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO), led by The Coca-Cola Company's Director of Global Labor Relations Ed Potter, successfully maneuvered to keep Colombia off the list of 25 countries which the ILO will monitor in light of those countries' abuses of worker and labor union rights. (See CUT announcement attached.) While Colombia had been on this list for years given its continuing track record of anti-union violence, Potter led the business sector at the ILO's Tripartite Standards Commission (a commission made up of business, government and union groups and heavily-weighted toward business interests) in insisting that there be no such list at all if Colombia were included on this list. The CUT, which participated in this Commission, described the conduct of the business sector in this regard as "blackmail." Over the unions' objections, the list was finally approved with Colombia deleted from the list despite its continued position as the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists. "Given The Coca-Cola Company's current bad publicity over its labor practices in Colombia - most recently documented in the film, "The Coca-Cola Case" - it is clear that Potter wanted Colombia off the list as a means to quash the continuing controversy which Colombia's labor problems pose to The Coca-Cola Company," according to Ray Rogers, Director of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. However, Potter's machinations at the ILO have real-world consequences, for Colombia will use its deletion from the ILO "Most Wanted List" in its continued push to pass the Free Trade Agreements with the U.S., Canada and the E.U. - trade agreements which will benefit multi-national penetration of Colombia to the detriment of the rights of workers, the indigenous and Afro-Colombians as well as to the environment of Colombia. "Potter's and Coca-Cola's bullying tactics have been used before to maintain corporate control of the ILO," Rogers stated. Consider what happened at the ILO meeting in Geneva in June 2007: 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..." "Three years ago," Rogers added, "Potter worked to shield Colombia and Coca-Cola from any real scrutiny at a time when the Colombian government and multinational corporations were getting unwanted attention for their ties to paramilitary death squads that prey on workers and their unions." Contact: Pat Clark, (718) 852-2808, info@killercoke.org Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites |
