Mobilize for Coca-Cola's April 19th Annual Shareholders' Meeting!

Information in this alert comes from the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. www.killercoke.org
Posted April 6, 2005

The Stop Killer Coke Campaign calling on all its supporters to mobilize for Coca-Cola's annual shareholders' meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, April 19th, starting at 10:30 a.m. The meeting is being held at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington , Delaware, the site of last year's annual meeting.

The annual meeting is the only place one can challenge face-to-face the chief policy-makers of the company - the top executives and board of directors. By having a strong presence inside and outside the meeting, activists also serve a warning to the stockholders, creditors and other potential investors that they will be held accountable for the irresponsible actions of this company. Finally, the annual meeting can provide a platform to get the Campaign's message to the media.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is working with individuals and other organizations, including the India Resource Center , Corporate Accountability International and the Polaris Institute to hold Coke accountable for its serious human rights, health and environmental abuses. If you or your organization would like to participate in or help mobilize for the annual meeting demonstration, contact the Campaign at (718) 852-2808 or e-mail the Campaign at stopkillercoke@aol.com.

These abuses include:

• Complicity in the kidnapping, torture and murder of unionists representing workers in Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants;
• Overexploitation and pollution of water sources in India , Mexico , Ghana and elsewhere;
• Benefiting from hazardous child labor in sugar cane fields in El Salvador ;
• Aggressive marketing to children of nutritionally worthless and damaging products;
• Anti-worker policies;
• Firing of whistleblowers;
• History of racial discrimination extending today to Coca-Cola Enterprises;
• Opposition to environmentally-sound bottle deposit bills;
• Fraudulent business practices.

Seeking stock proxies from concerned stockholders

Stockholders will soon be receiving their notice of the annual meeting and proxy card from The Coca-Cola Co. If you are not able to attend the annual meeting and would like to help, Campaign organizers would like your proxy assigned to them so that others can attend. You can contact the Campaign at (718) 852-2808 or stopkillercoke@aol.com and organizers will explain how to transfer your proxy.

For this year's meeting, there is a resolution sponsored by the New York City Employment Retirement System (NYCERS) and the New York City Teachers' Retirement System entitled: Shareowner Proposal Regarding an Independent Delegation of Inquiry to Colombia (visit http://www.killercoke.org/cokeproxy.pdf)

Coke's policymakers are opposing the resolution because they say they have a better solution. The Campaign is highly suspicious of Coke's solution. NYCERS is requesting an "independent delegation of inquiry… that includes representatives from U.S. and Colombian human rights organizations." Coke's response is to oppose the resolution and to send "an independent third party," Cal Safety Compliance Corp., a Los Angeles-based corporate social compliance monitor, to assess workplace conditions "around the world, including Colombia ." Can CSCC be independent when Coke is paying the bills? CSCC's web site states: "CSCC has operations in over 110 countries providing services to more than 600 manufacturers and retailers." An investigation by a Coke-chosen company is tantamount to the fox guarding the hen house.

Cal Safety Compliance Corp is known as an independent monitor, accredited by the Fair Labor Association. However, it has a spotty record. A Business Week article in Oct. 2000 stated: "Price Waterhouse Coopers LLP (PWC) and Safety Compliance Corp., had inspected Chun Si (a Chinese sweatshop) five times in 1999 and found that the factory didn't pay the legal overtime rate and had required excessive work hours."

"Still," according to Denise Fenton, Wal-Mart Director of Corporate Compliance, "the auditors (Cal Safety and Price Waterhouse Coopers) failed to uncover many of the egregious conditions in the factory despite interviews with dozens of workers."

The Campaign would expect Cal Safety to find Coke guilty of some wrongdoing, but overlook the most reprehensible human rights violations, such as intimidation, kidnapping, torture and murder. With Coke's money behind the investigation, Campaign organizers say they would expect, at best, a report that would slap Coca-Cola's wrist, but in the end, exonerate the company and its bottlers of its worst abuses.

Campaign organizers say we should not forget what happened in Guatemala in the 1970s and 1980s. What happened was not a figment of anyone's imagination, but "The Real Thing." The following is a quote from the back cover of a booklet published in 1987 by the Latin America Bureau in England :

"For nine years the 450 workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City fought a battle with their employers for their jobs, their trade union and their lives. Three times they occupied the plant — on the last occasion for thirteen months. Three General Secretaries of their union were murdered and five other workers killed. Four more were kidnapped and have disappeared.

"Against all the odds they survived, thanks to their own extraordinary courage and help from fellow trade unionists in Guatemala and around the world. A huge international campaign of protests and boycotts was central to their struggle. As a result, the Coca-Cola workers forced concessions from one of the world's largest multinational food giants and kept the Guatemalan trade union movement alive through a dark age of government repression."

What happened at Coca-Cola bottling plants in the 70s and early 80s in Guatemala is happening in Colombia today. The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is a movement of "we's," that is, a movement of individuals, organizations and institutions around the world. The Campaign plans to put an end to history repeating itself once and for all. Coke is guilty of many serious crimes in Colombia , India and elsewhere and none of their public relations efforts will enable them to escape responsibility.

The Campaign is issuing a call to people concerned about human rights, health, and environmental abuses to please join them in a demonstration at the site of the annual meeting. Organizers will arrange a permit for this protest and will have signs and literature.

Read about Coca-Cola's 2004 Annual Meeting in a "Democracy Now" segment about the event (www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/27/1435213), as well as a "Washington Post" article (www.killercoke.org/washpost422.htm).