Edgar Paez, Gil’s coworker, remembers that they said, “if they didn’t resign, the same thing would happen to them that happened to Gil - they would be killed.” All the union members resigned, fearing for their lives. On the next day, this paramilitary band went inside the bottling plant, called the workers together for a meeting and told them they had until 4:00 p.m.
At 8:00 p.m, the same military group broke into the union’s offices, destroyed their equipment, and set the entire building on fire along with all the union’s records. Following the assassination they kidnapped another union leader, but this man escaped, and fled to Bogotá, the capital. Segundo Gil, who was a member of the union’s executive board, walked outside to find out what they wanted. government to coerce workers in other countries into inhumane working conditions.Īccording to the complaint here is what happened: On December 5, 1996, a right-wing paramilitary squad of the AUC (United Self-Defenses of Colombia, a far-right paramilitary and drug trafficking group active from 1997 to 2006) showed up at the gate of the Coke bottling plant in Carepa at 8:30 in the morning. to grasp how multinational corporations use the U.S. Understanding this link is important for working people in the U.S. Coca-Cola suit was the first to link a North American multinational corporation directly to this kind of atrocity. However, those who order the killings have managed to keep their doings under wraps. The right-wing squads are widely held to be responsible for carrying out the assassinations of Colombian union activists. The murder occurred not long after the owner of a Coca Cola bottling plant in Carepa, Antioquia, Richard Kirby (a businessman from Miami), said that he would do anything necessary to kill and disappear workers that tried to join trade unions. The suit was linked to the murder of union leader Isidro Segundo Gil in 1996 by hired thugs. The Okmulgee distribution center will remain open and its employees won’t be affected by the bottling plant closure, which is expected to take place in March.Īrebalos says eligible associates can apply to open positions in the Oklahoma market and will be given access to job postings across Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages and other bottlers in the company system.On July 20, 2001, 20 years ago today, a group of unions filed a lawsuit against the Coca Cola company, accusing Coca Cola’s Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using paramilitary death squads to murder, torture, kidnap and threaten union leaders at the company’s bottling plants. The Tulsa World reports that Coca-Cola employs 214 people in Okmulgee, including 104 at the bottling plant.
He says the changes at the Oklahoma City and Okmulgee locations could result in approximately 246 job reductions.
– Coca-Cola has announced that its bottling plant in eastern Oklahoma will close as part of a consolidation with the company’s Oklahoma City facility.Ĭoca-Cola spokesman Ish Arebalos says the company is designing a new operating model to support its growth strategy. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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