é a economia estúpido

Multinational firms profit from the reduced effectiveness of trade unions that arises from
the intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,
lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinational
corporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some cases
multinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such is
the case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional de
Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that represents
Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-Cola
Company and two of its Colombian bottlers in U.S. Federal District Court in Miami, charging thatMultinational firms profit from the reduced effectiveness of trade unions that arises from
the intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,
lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinational
corporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some cases
multinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such is
the case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional de
Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that represents
Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-Cola
Company and two of its Colombian bottlers in U.S. Federal District Court in Miami, charging thatMultinational firms profit from the reduced effectiveness of trade unions that arises from
the intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,
lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinational
corporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some cases
multinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such is
the case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional de
Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that represents
Coca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-Cola
Company and two of its Colombian bottlers in U.S. Federal District Court in Miami, charging thatthey collaborated with paramilitaries to murder and terrorize workers.
This report explores the experience of Colombian Coca-Cola workers and their charges
against the company and its bottlers. It is based on interviews conducted by the author with union
leaders, Coca-Cola employees, and their family members in Bogotá, Barrancabermeja,
Bucaramanga, Barranquilla, and Cartegena between May 23 and June 5, 2004. It also draws on
conversations with members of other labor unions and lawyers associated with the Coca-Cola
case, as well as secondary documentation provided by Sinaltrainal. It concludes that Coca-Cola
bears more responsibility for the campaign of terror directed against its workers than the company
is willing to admit and suggests steps that the American Anthropological Association can take to
pressure Coca-Cola to change its business practices.
Violence and Neoliberalism in Colombia
One hundred and eighty Coca-Cola employees have suffered major human rights
violations over the last fifteen years; nine have been murdered. Family members have also
experienced threats, abductions, torture, and murder and, in several cases, survivors continue to
suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Sinaltrainal has lost nearly half of its membership
because of the violence and threats directed against its affiliates. Membership currently stands at
about 1,400 individuals and includes laborers in Nestlé, Nabisco, and nine other companies of the
food and beverage industry. The majority of workers in the industry are not unionized and work
for low wages under a variety of temporary arrangements. Union membership nationwide has
fallen from 12 percent of the work force in the mid-1990s to 3.2 percent today, while official
unemployment has nearly doubled from 10.5 percent in 1990 to 19.7 percent today.2
The economic roots of the crisis affecting Colombian workers lie in a series of neoliberal
“structural adjustment” reforms implemented by the government to satisfy the lending
requirements of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These reforms harmed
domestic industry and agriculture by making them more vulnerable to competition from powerful
global corporations, and they wiped out tens of thousands of jobs. New labor legislation eroded
workers’ right to collective bargaining, opened the door to more “flexible” labor arrangements in
violation of International Labor Organization standards, and made unionizing a growing number
of temporary workers nearly impossible. Then, in 2003, a series of “anti-terrorist” statutes further
curtailed labor and civil rights by allowing the armed forces to arrest and detain people without judicial warrant, thus legitimizing a de facto policy long practiced by the security forces against
unionists and others alleged to threaten the status quo. Between August 2002 and July 2003, the
security forces detained over one hundred thousand Colombians but never charged them with a
crime.3
Unwarranted detentions may last for months and even years in some cases. They
undermine the ability of unions to challenge anti-labor policies, and they associate legitimate
protests with terrorist activities and neutralize union leaders by placing them under the control of
the state. Indeed, the right-wing government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez–a strong ally of the Bush
administration–demonstrates more willingness to negotiate with illegal paramilitary organizations
than with legitimate labor unions, as it seeks a military solution to the challenges posed by two
left-wing guerrilla groups–the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the
National Liberation Army (ELN).
Human rights organizations attribute over 75 percent of the total human rights violations
committed in the country over the last fifteen years to the paramilitaries. Because of their links to
the Colombian armed forces, paramilitaries are referred to as the “6th Division,”4 even though the
government routinely denies the existence of any connection. They have diverse origins: some
emerged as the private armies of well-known drug traffickers, others organized to combat
guerrillas and protect ranchers in the conflicted Magdalena Medio region, and still others grew
out of legal self-defense groups established by President Alvaro Uribe when he was governor of
Antioquia province.
Despite their diverse regional affiliations, the paramilitaries ceased to be local phenomena
in 1997, when they federated under the umbrella of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
The AUC then began a coordinated campaign to defeat the FARC and the ELN and dismantle
unions, peasant organizations, and other civil society groups that it labeled guerrilla collaborators.
It increasingly waged a dirty war on behalf of the Colombian army, which faced intensified
international pressure in the 1990s to clean up its human rights record. The paramilitary-military
relationship was based on what Human Rights Watch called a “strategy of impunity” in which
“supposedly ‘phantom’ paramilitaries that the military claims it can neither identify, locate, nor
control take the blame for massacres and forced disappearances, allowing the military to evade
responsibility...paramilitaries take the brunt of criticism for tactics taught, employed, and support
by the armed forces, but which they do not openly endorse (HRW 1996: 61). It is a relationship
that has been nurtured by enormous amounts of military assistance from the United States
mas sabe tao bem uma coca colinha fresquinha... versão integral aqui http://www.aaanet.org/committees/cfhr/gill.pdf