Authors: Mark Thomas

Belching Out the Devil (49 page)

12) Did any Coca-Cola

FEMSA
bottling plants pay money for SINALTRAINAL members to give up their trade-union membership? If so how any many trade union members did the Coca-Cola FEMSA bottling plants pay to the trade-union members? How many trade-union members were given money to give up their membership? Over what period of time did this occur?

have no information to indicate
that Coca-Cola FEMSA has ever paid money for SINALTRAINAL members to give up their trade union membership. The independent bottler guarantees the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining and has multiple agreements with multiple unions- and in a country where 4 percent of workers from unionizing, 31 percent of Coca-Cola bottler employees belong to unions.

13) Why did negotiations between The Coca-Cola Company and the plaintiffs in the ATCA suit break down earlier this year? What conditions did The Coca-Company put on any settlement?

In 2001, SINALTRAINAL, with the assistance of U.S. labor interests,
filed

Alien

Torts Statute
lawsuits

against The Coca-Cola Company and

several entities affiliated with independent bottlers of Coca-Cola Â® brand products in Colombia

. The Coca-Cola Company was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida from the case in 2003,
which held that the Company possessed no control over or liability for the alleged conduct of third parties in rural Colombia.
In October 2006,