Sinaltrainal has addressed the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association with a complaint17 that has been expanded several times for human rights violations committed by Coca Cola in Colombia, and the recommendations that were issued have not been respected since they are not binding.18
Given the harassment that workers of Coca Cola bottling plants are facing, and the danger for their life and physical integrity, the Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, has ordered precautionary measures for 26 Sinaltrainal members.
On 9 October 2012, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CAJAR) of Colombia, with the support of the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, requesting the opening of a criminal inquiry with respect to anti-trade union violence in Colombia. Among the cases that were submitted are several of the murders of Sinaltrainal leaders.
In 2008, the ILO conducted a mission in Colombia in order to assess the situation but did not take into account past facts: killings, death threats, attacks, kidnapping attempts, attacks on the union, lay-offs en masse, environmental damage; nor did it accept or consider any evidence of those facts submitted by Sinaltrainal.
The impunity that continues to benefit Coca Cola for the human, labor and trade union rights violations in Colombia shows the need for a legally binding international instrument making it possible to control activities of transnational corporations and their impacts on human rights as well as to guarantee justice and redress for victims.
Only a legally binding international instrument for transnational corporations can generate the legal, social and political pressure on them to put an end to their continuous behavior of extermination of trade unions and of increasing precariousness of work, and oblige the state of Colombia to judge and punish those liable for harassment of Colombian trade unionists.
For all the above mentioned reasons, the Europe–Third World Center (CETIM) urges the government of the United States to comply with its duty to make sure that transnational corporations based within its territory do not violate human rights, in particular while carrying on their activities in other countries and, should that be the case, to grant victims access to justice. We appeal in particular to the government of the United States to intervene in order to put an end to the incessant attacks by Coca Cola on human, labor and trade union rights in Colombia, and to assure that victims obtain justice and redress.
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