é a economia estúpido
Autor: Antonio Montana | Publicado: 2010-06-15T09:07:00-07:00

Multinational firms profit from the reduced effectiveness of trade unions that arises fromthe intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinationalcorporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some casesmultinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such isthe case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional deTrabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that representsCoca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-ColaCompany 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 fromthe intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinationalcorporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some casesmultinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such isthe case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional deTrabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that representsCoca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-ColaCompany 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 fromthe intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. Weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts,lowered wages, reduced benefits, and “flexible” contracts that are promoted by multinationalcorporations and that are emblematic of the new, neoliberal economic order. Yet in some casesmultinationals do more than benefit from extra-judicial violence: they actually organize it. Such isthe case with the Coca-Cola Company, according to Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional deTrabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos), the food and beverage workers’ union that representsCoca-Cola workers in Colombia. On July 21, 200l, Sinaltrainal filed suit against the Coca-ColaCompany 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 chargesagainst the company and its bottlers. It is based on interviews conducted by the author with unionleaders, Coca-Cola employees, and their family members in Bogotá, Barrancabermeja,Bucaramanga, Barranquilla, and Cartegena between May 23 and June 5, 2004. It also draws onconversations with members of other labor unions and lawyers associated with the Coca-Colacase, as well as secondary documentation provided by Sinaltrainal. It concludes that Coca-Colabears more responsibility for the campaign of terror directed against its workers than the companyis willing to admit and suggests steps that the American Anthropological Association can take topressure Coca-Cola to change its business practices.Violence and Neoliberalism in ColombiaOne hundred and eighty Coca-Cola employees have suffered major human rightsviolations over the last fifteen years; nine have been murdered. Family members have alsoexperienced threats, abductions, torture, and murder and, in several cases, survivors continue tosuffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Sinaltrainal has lost nearly half of its membershipbecause of the violence and threats directed against its affiliates. Membership currently stands atabout 1,400 individuals and includes laborers in Nestlé, Nabisco, and nine other companies of thefood and beverage industry. The majority of workers in the industry are not unionized and workfor low wages under a variety of temporary arrangements. Union membership nationwide hasfallen from 12 percent of the work force in the mid-1990s to 3.2 percent today, while officialunemployment has nearly doubled from 10.5 percent in 1990 to 19.7 percent today.2The economic roots of the crisis affecting Colombian workers lie in a series of neoliberal“structural adjustment” reforms implemented by the government to satisfy the lendingrequirements of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These reforms harmeddomestic industry and agriculture by making them more vulnerable to competition from powerfulglobal corporations, and they wiped out tens of thousands of jobs. New labor legislation erodedworkers’ right to collective bargaining, opened the door to more “flexible” labor arrangements inviolation of International Labor Organization standards, and made unionizing a growing numberof temporary workers nearly impossible. Then, in 2003, a series of “anti-terrorist” statutes furthercurtailed 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 againstunionists and others alleged to threaten the status quo. Between August 2002 and July 2003, thesecurity forces detained over one hundred thousand Colombians but never charged them with acrime.3Unwarranted detentions may last for months and even years in some cases. Theyundermine the ability of unions to challenge anti-labor policies, and they associate legitimateprotests with terrorist activities and neutralize union leaders by placing them under the control ofthe state. Indeed, the right-wing government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez–a strong ally of the Bushadministration–demonstrates more willingness to negotiate with illegal paramilitary organizationsthan with legitimate labor unions, as it seeks a military solution to the challenges posed by twoleft-wing guerrilla groups–the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and theNational Liberation Army (ELN).Human rights organizations attribute over 75 percent of the total human rights violationscommitted in the country over the last fifteen years to the paramilitaries. Because of their links tothe Colombian armed forces, paramilitaries are referred to as the “6th Division,”4 even though thegovernment routinely denies the existence of any connection. They have diverse origins: someemerged as the private armies of well-known drug traffickers, others organized to combatguerrillas and protect ranchers in the conflicted Magdalena Medio region, and still others grewout of legal self-defense groups established by President Alvaro Uribe when he was governor ofAntioquia province.Despite their diverse regional affiliations, the paramilitaries ceased to be local phenomenain 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 dismantleunions, 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 intensifiedinternational pressure in the 1990s to clean up its human rights record. The paramilitary-militaryrelationship 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, norcontrol take the blame for massacres and forced disappearances, allowing the military to evaderesponsibility...paramilitaries take the brunt of criticism for tactics taught, employed, and supportby the armed forces, but which they do not openly endorse (HRW 1996: 61). It is a relationshipthat 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