Ex-Coca-Cola Workers Shut Down Facilities of Former Employer in Venezuela

[Joanne98]

Ex-workers of Coca-Cola in Venezuela took over and shutdown 13 distribution centers and one bottling plant of their former employer over the past week. The actions are the culmination of a heated severance pay dispute that has persisted since the workers were laid off in 2003.

On Monday Coca-Cola Femsa legal director Rodrigo Anzola declared that the company "believes in and respects Venezuelan law," which is why it demands that the Minister of the Interior and the Defense Ministry intervene to bring to an end the "illegal and unconstitutional" blockage, which has affected 45% of the commercial activity of the company and 36% of the current workers.

The 5,000-strong group of fleet workers and contractors claim Coca-Cola Femsa owes them a total of $520 million, but Anzola insists that no contractual relationship has ever existed between these workers and the current ownership.

Regiomontano Industrial Group, which currently owns Coca-Cola`s Venezuela bottling franchise, claims that when Regiomontano took over operations in 2003, the ex workers were laid off by the previous franchise owner, Panamco. According to this argument, the ex-workers are violently demanding payment from a company that never employed them.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3155

[uberblonde]

1. Oh, yeah.

They do that in the United States all the time - and it works.

[Peace Patriot]

2. This is likely related to Donald Rumsfeld's strategy of destabilizing Venezuela

with economic warfare, to be followed by "swift" U.S. action in support of "friends and allies" in South America (fascist thugs planning coups). See

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

Just before Rumsfeld's op-ed, Exxon Mobile walked out of talks with Venezuela over a dispute about Venezuela's 60% share of its own oil revenues. France's Total agreed to the deal. Conoco is still in talks, but will likely agree. Only Exxon Mobile stormed out, and went running to the World Bank for succor (until recently headed by Paul Wolfowitz--it's an exclusively US/Bush-Cheney appointment). Then, last week, we hear that Exxon Mobile has furthermore gone into "first world" courts and obtained injunctions seeking to freeze $12 billion in Venezuela's assets. Both Venezuela's 60% share in its own oil, and its various assets, are being used by the Chavez government for urgent social justice programs--schools, medical care for the poor, free or cheap food for Venezuela's 10% poorest of the poor, low cost housing, loans to small business and co-ops, land reform, infrastructure development, regional initiatives such as the Bank of the South (which is driving the World Bank loan sharks out of the region), and all the things that the rich oil elite has neglected for decades and centuries, while they beat Venezuela's vast poor population into the ground. So this Exxon Mobile move is an assault on the people of Venezuela, as well as on the Chavez government that the people of Venezuela have repeatedly elected. It is an act of war.

Meanwhile, we hear of food hoarding by the big grocery chains in the Venezuela--trying to drive up prices. Also, an obvious Bush/CIA caper out of Miami, involving a "suitcase full of money" intended to drive a wedge between Venezuela and one of its chief allies, Argentina. Argentina wasn't buying it, and this week closed an important deal with Venezuela, to provide beef in exchange for oil.

Coca-Cola may well be in league with Exxon Mobile not to cooperate on social justice issues, and to foment unrest, civil disorder and destabilization, preparatory to another coup attempt. Coca-Cola's lawyer says Coca-Cola "believes in and respects Venezuelan law." That is bullshit. There is not a worse "bad actor" in third world countries than Coca-Cola--except maybe Exxon Mobile. The Bush Junta, U.S. corporations and Venezuela's fascist elite have been trying to topple the Constitutional government of Venezuela ever since Chavez was first elected--including kidnapping him and threatening his life. They have no respect for anything--least of all for the rule of law.

This crap about changing the company and denying benefits is typical lawlessness by global corporate predators. It can only be successful where the government is corrupt and collusive, and fails to assert the country's sovereign rights over corporations, and the right to protect its workers from theft and exploitation. In any case, $520 million is a drop in the bucket--spare change--to Coca-Cola, just as the amount at issue between Exxon Mobile and Venezuela is inconsequential to Exxon Mobile . (It's not the $12 billion in assets.) They are causing trouble is what they are doing. It is classic corporate/fascist anti-democracy strategy in Latin America. And behind it is a classic war pig, Donald Rumsfeld, mapping out Oil War II.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Venezuela's Coca-Cola bottler reaches truce with ex-employees

Venezuela's Coca-Cola bottler reaches truce with ex-employees
Submitted by Mudassir Rizwan on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 11:40. International
By IANS

Caracas : Venezuela's Coca-Cola Femsa , the leading bottling unit of Latin America, has announced that it has reached a truce with the former employees who had been blockading part of its installations since Feb 5 demanding reinstatement.

"Operations will return to normal soon following the truce, which was the only way to solve the crisis," Rodrigo Anzola, the legal chief of the company, said Friday at a press conference here, Spain's EFE news agency reported Saturday.

Anzola said the company's production this month reduced by 10 percent or about 1.7 million cases because of the blockades by the ex-employees.

He also said there was a "loss of trust and credibility." However, he expressed hope that in the next four or five days, the company will be able to supply all the points of sale in the country.

The truce, promoted by Venezuela's National Assembly, plans to establish a joint technical committee to gather information about the company's debt to former employees of the firm that used to have the Coca-Cola franchise.

More:
http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2008/feb/16/venezuelas_coca_cola_bottler_reaches_truce_ex_employees.html