Deval Patrick "not only managed Coca-Cola's global legal practice, but most of its other corporate functions, as well," according to former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Mr. Patrick has pocketed millions from Coke to cover up the company's crimes and immoral behavior and to keep his mouth shut. Although he has said, "I have never left my conscience at the door," nothing could be further from the truth.

Mr. Patrick joined The Coca-Cola Company in April 2001. According to a company proxy statement, his compensation for eight months' work in 2001 was more than $10.7 million. He was given 10 years' pension credit with the company to add to the years he actually worked for the company. Company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission suggest that Mr. Patrick stands to make many more millions in future Coke-related payouts. In addition, he was paid handsomely as a board member of Coke's largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, from 2001 to 2004. He has also made millions more representing the interests of companies like Texaco and Ameriquest, which pursued policies at odds with the public interest.

In October 2003, I was one of 15 protestors who handed out literature to hundreds of lawyers attending a Washington, D.C. banquet at which Deval Patrick was to receive an award from the organization Equal Justice Works. We handed out a brochure entitled "The SunTrust/Coca-Cola $ix-Pack: Getting away with Murder" and a leaflet bearing the headline, "No Sympathy for Deval: The Killer Coke Counsel." Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman were among hundreds of people who took the handouts. The leaflet reproduced a letter dated October 2, 2003 from Terry Collingsworth, executive director of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), stating in part:

"(Mr. Patrick's) activities in his current position at Coca-Cola nullify any basis for Equal Justice Works honoring him as an advocate for civil rights, equality, and fairness in the workplace.

"Coca-Cola and other multinational companies in Colombia are literally getting away with murder by partnering with Colombia's notorious armed forces and paramilitary troops, including the most brutal organization in Colombia, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC)…

"Coca-Cola bottlers Pan American Beverages (Panamco) and Bebidas y Alimentos are two of the companies that provide support to the AUC. In turn, the AUC murders and tortures trade union leaders seeking to represent workers at these companies. In response, SINALTRAINAL, a Colombian trade union representing workers at Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia, filed a lawsuit in Miami's U.S. District Court, along with victims of AUC violence, against Panamco, Coca-Cola, and Bebidas y Alimentos. There is no dispute that several SINALTRAINAL leaders who represent workers at Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants have been murdered by the AUC, and five individuals represented in the lawsuit have been tortured, and/or unlawfully detained.

"Led by Deval Patrick, the Coca-Cola legal team has reached new lows in the so-called corporate responsibility movement. Unable to dispute the facts, Coca-Cola is pursuing a corporate shell game defense. The company claims that the people who were murdered and tortured under the Coca-Cola signs in the Coca-Cola bottling plants that send profits back to Coca-Cola in Atlanta have no recourse against Coca-Cola and should instead subject themselves to further risk of violence by seeking justice in Colombia. Mr. Patrick's team seeks to maintain an incredibly unjust, uncivil and unfair system that allows companies to enjoy the best of both worlds in their overseas operations, by profiting from human rights violations while limiting liability to a local entity that is a mere facilitator for the parent company's operations.

"This represents a grave threat to innocent workers worldwide…"

Patrick’s specialty—defending corporations against the people

The initial lawsuit was filed by the ILRF and the United Steelworkers Union in July 2001, just three months after Deval Patrick became general counsel of The Coca-Cola Co. Under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1789, foreigners can sue in U.S. courts for violations of fundamental human rights that are clearly defined under international law. It applies to "the law of nations," which federal courts have interpreted to cover genocide, war crimes, extrajudicial killings, torture, unlawful detention and crimes against humanity.

The Bush Justice Dept. and the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, representing thousands of corporations, both want to nullify the ATCA. As a New York Times editorial (6/2/03) said: "To stop lawsuits under this act would be to put abusive individuals and companies above the law."

It is noteworthy that Deval Patrick, while general counsel and vice-president at Texaco (1999 to 2001), devoted a good deal of time and effort to opposing the attempt to use the ATCA as part of the legal basis for a claim on behalf of 30,000 impoverished Indians and settlers in Ecuador who sought compensation for massive environmental damage caused by Texaco. As the Boston Herald (8/28/99) reported, "Deval Patrick…contends the plaintiffs shouldn't have access to U.S. courts, only those in Ecuador…" In so doing, Patrick set the pattern for his legal assault on Colombian Coca-Cola workers.

The July 2001 lawsuit charges that Coke bottlers "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders." Since 1990, seven union leaders have been murdered and many others and family members have been kidnapped, tortured, illegally detained or otherwise victimized.

A chilling description of SINALTRAINAL leader Isidro Gil's assassination, based on eyewitness accounts, is the centerpiece of the lawsuit filed in Miami in July 2001. It tells how the thugs showed up at the Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant gate and fired 10 shots at Gil, a member of the union executive board, mortally wounding him. It describes how a heavily armed group returned to the plant the next day, called the workers together and told them if they didn't quit the union by 4 p.m., they, too, would be killed. Resignation forms were prepared in advance by Coca-Cola's plant manager, who had a history of socializing with the paramilitaries and had earlier "given (them) an order to carry out the task of destroying the union."

Fearing for their lives, union members at Carepa resigned en masse and fled the area. The company broke off contract negotiations, the paramilitaries camped outside the plant gate for the next two months, and the union was crushed. Experienced workers who made about $380 a month were replaced by new hires at $130 a month.

On June 2, 2006, the ILRF and the Steelworkers union filed a new Alien Tort Claims Act case against the Coca-Cola Company and its Latin American bottler, Coca-Cola FEMSA. This new complaint charges that managers at the Coke bottling plant in Barranquilla, Colombia conspired with both the Colombian Administrative Department of Security ("DAS") and the AUC paramilitaries to intimidate, threaten and ultimately kill SINALTRAINAL trade union leader Adolfo de Jesus Munera on August 31, 2002. The complaint further alleges that, despite a number of warnings to Coca-Cola management in Atlanta that the management at the Barranquilla bottler has continued to meet with and provide plant access to paramilitaries, the paramilitary infiltration of this bottling plant continues unabated to this day. Meanwhile, these same paramilitaries have continued to threaten SINALTRAINAL members and leaders with death and even kidnapped the child of one SINALTRAINAL leader to pressure him into refraining from his union activities.

But that was years ago...

On his “official video/audio blog” August 21, 2006 Patrick said: “Thanks to a paid public relations consultant from New York, you may have heard about charges by bottling plant workers in Colombia about violence in their plant years ago.”

Because almost ten years have passed since Gil died in circumstances that plainly implicated Coca-Cola, are his survivors no longer entitled to seek relief and justice? Mr. Patrick’s words, “years ago,” betray his low regard for the families of both Isidro Gil and union leader Adolfo de Jesus Munera, the latter killed by paramilitaries who still had free access to Panamco (now Coca-Cola FEMSA) plants in 2002, more than a year after Patrick took over Coke’s legal affairs.

In July 2003, New York City Council Member and former NYPD police officer Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes a significant Colombian population, sent Coca-Cola CEO Douglas Daft the first of several letters asking him to facilitate an independent investigation of allegations of human rights abuses at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. Coca-Cola wanted no part of it. Rudy Beserra, Coca-Cola's North American vice president of Latin Affairs, wrote to Monserrate on September 11, 2003: "At this time, The Coca-Cola Company does not anticipate supporting in any way any form of independent fact-finding delegation to Colombia."

It should be noted here that what has happened at Coca-Cola facilities in Colombia is not an aberration. In the 1970s and '80s, a dozen union leaders and activists at Coca-Cola's bottling plants in Guatemala were murdered or disappeared and were never heard from again. The Latin America Bureau in London published a booklet in 1987 stating:

"For nine years the 450 workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City fought a battle with Coca-Cola 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."

In January 2004, Council Member Monserrate led a fact-finding delegation to Colombia to investigate allegations of Coca-Cola bottlers' human rights abuses. In April 2004, the delegation issued a report, which said in part:

"The findings of the New York City Fact-Finding Delegation on Coca-Cola in Colombia support the workers' claims that the company bears responsibility for the human rights crisis affecting its workforce.

"To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including nine murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.

"Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval. Shockingly, company officials admitted to the delegation that they had never investigated the ties between plant managers and paramilitaries. The company's inaction and its ongoing refusal to take any responsibility for the human rights crisis faced by its workforce in Colombia demonstrates—at best—disregard for the lives of its workers.

"Coca-Cola's complicity in the situation is deepened by its repeated pattern of bringing criminal charges against union activists who have spoken out about the company's collusion with paramilitaries. These charges have been dismissed without merit on several occasions.

"The conclusion that Coca-Cola bears responsibility for the campaign of terror leveled at its workers is unavoidable. The delegation calls on the company to rectify the situation immediately, and calls on all people of conscience to join in putting pressure on the company to do so.

"On January 13th, the delegation met with two representatives of Coca-Cola/FEMSA in Bogota, Juan Manuel Alvarez, Director of Human Resources, and Juan Carlos Dominguez, Manager of Legal Affairs. Delegation members had tried, while still in New York, to arrange visits to Coca-Cola bottling plants. This request was reiterated in the January 13th meeting, and the delegation at that point asked specifically for access to the plant in Barrancabermeja. Company officials flatly refused. In the course of the meeting with Alvarez and Dominguez, they promised to send several pieces of documentation that they referred to. To date, none of this material has been received despite a letter from corporate headquarters in Atlanta testifying that these materials will be provided.

"The delegation received information about Coca-Cola's labor practices and the violence against its workers from several other parties as well, helping to provide a larger social, economic, and political context. In Barrancabermeja, the delegation met with CREDHOS, a regional human rights organization, on January 14, and with the Organizacion Femenina Popular, a women's organization, on January 15. In Cali on January 17, it spoke to Diego Escobar Cuellar, a representative of ASONAL JUDICIAL, the association of judicial workers. Escobar provided chilling insight into the problem of impunity, describing in detail the corruption within the judicial system and its increasing ideological alliance with the paramilitaries. Colombian justice is an oxymoron, he told delegation members.

"The delegation also met with a variety of government and political officials with whom it discussed the Coca-Cola situation. These meetings included: Congressmen Wilson Borja and Gustavo Petro; Daniel Garcia Peña, aide to Bogotá Mayor Lucho Garzón; members of the executive board of the Frente Social y Politico, a left-wing political party; Cali Mayor Apolinar Salcedo Caicedo; and the City Council of Cali.

"At the outset of the trip, the delegation also met with two staff members of the U.S. Embassy, Craig Conway and Stuart Tuttle, who at the time was in charge of Human Rights.

"Coca-Cola's employment practices in Colombia, both those within the letter of the law and those in contravention of the law, have had the effect of driving wages, work standards and job security for Coca-Cola workers sharply downward, and simultaneously, of decimating the workers' union, SINALTRAINAL. Both trends are reinforced by the appalling human rights violations that workers have suffered at the hands of paramilitary forces.

Corporate terror tactics

"The company denies any involvement in the threats, assassinations, kidnappings and other terror tactics, but its failure to protect its workers even on company property, its refusal to investigate persistent allegations of payoffs to paramilitary leaders by plant managers, and its unwillingness to share documentation that might demonstrate otherwise leads the delegation to the conclusion that Coca-Cola is complicit in the human rights abuses of its workers in Colombia.

"Circumstantial evidence of Coca-Cola's complicity in the raw repression of its union workforce abounds. This consists in the suspicious coincidence, reported to the delegation by multiple union sources in Colombia, of waves of anti-union violence during contract negotiations between the union and the company. The union's analysis also reveals that the company's peak profits have come at times of the most intense repression.

"Beyond these correlations, there are troubling eyewitness accounts of paramilitaries having unrestricted access to Coke plants and of paramilitaries consorting with company managers. When the delegation traveled to Barrancabermeja, it conducted a physical assessment of access to the bottling plant there in order to understand more precisely what paramilitary access to company property entails. The plant in Barrancabermeja is surrounded by a 10-foot high iron fence. Entry is limited to a guarded gate, which remains closed. It is simply impossible to gain access to the plant without company knowledge and permission. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that paramilitaries in Coke's bottling plants were there with the full knowledge and/or tacit approval of the company.

"The delegation also heard testimony from multiple sources that there are payments made by local Coke managers to paramilitaries. In the delegation's meeting with Coca-Cola/FEMSA representatives Juan Manuel Alvarez and Juan Carlos Dominguez on January 13, these allegations were vigorously denied. Yet, Alvarez and Dominguez acknowledged that Coke officials had never undertaken any internal or external investigations into these assertions, nor into any of the hundreds of human rights violations suffered by the company's workers.

"The company's representatives also acknowledged there was a possibility that persons employed by the company—but acting without authorization—could have worked with, or have had contact with, paramilitaries. This admission makes the failure to investigate ties to the paramilitaries all the more shocking. Alvarez and Dominguez also maintained that the company assisted workers in filing complaints with the government about paramilitary harassment for union activity and promised to provide documentation thereof; to date, however, no such documentation has been received by the delegation, despite follow-up correspondence.

"The January 13 exchange mirrors the delegation's experience with Coca-Cola throughout its dialogue with the company. Multiple requests for documentation have gone either unanswered or unfulfilled. Coke has shown—at best—disregard for the lives of its workers, who have been threatened, beaten, kidnapped, exiled and killed while the company has not seen fit to investigate this highly disturbing pattern affecting its workforce.

"The delegation found both the quantity and the nature of Coca-Cola workers' allegations shocking and compelling. It seems indisputable that Coke workers have been systematically persecuted for their union activity. It seems equally evident that the company has allowed if not itself orchestrated the human rights violations of its workers, and it has benefited economically from those violations, which have severely weakened the workers' union and their bargaining power."

Coke lies about Colombia ties

At a March 2004 meeting with the Student Senate at Carleton College in Minnesota, Coca-Cola representative Lori Billingsley stated that an independent investigation had been done in Colombia by an organization named White & Case and that the company had been exonerated from any allegations of human rights abuses at its plants in Colombia. When students asked if they could get a copy of the report, they were told it was not available to the public.

Coke never told the students that White & Case is a big international corporate law firm that was representing the company in the Alien Tort Claims human rights lawsuit. Alexis Rovzar, an executive partner in White & Case, sits on the board of directors of Coca-Cola FEMSA (formerly Panamco), which is a defendant in the lawsuit.

At the end of the Student Senate meeting at which I presented the Colombian workers' case, students voted to have 42 Coke machines removed from the Carleton campus. On January 23, 2006, Business Week ran a feature article, "Killer Coke or Innocent Abroad? Controversy over anti-union violence in Colombia has colleges banning Coca-Cola." Accompanying the article were photos of Coke machines being removed from Carleton College and students doing a "die-in" protest at Yale University while Douglas Daft made a speech.

Coca-Cola's claims that it has no control over its bottlers in Colombia are blatantly false. As Forbes magazine pointed out in a December 23 article,

“The biggest bottlers aren't subsidiaries of Coke, nor are they completely independent. Coke effectively controls them by maintaining big equity stakes and a heavy presence on their boards, and by providing their main source of business. Yet it keeps its stakes in the bottlers below 50 percent thereby avoiding getting hit with their piles of debt and any unpleasant liabilities.”

The Coca-Cola Company owns 39.6 percent of the economic stock and 46.4 percent of the voting stock of Coca-Cola FEMSA, its largest Colombian bottler and a defendant in the lawsuit. Many of Coca-Cola's highest-ranking executives serve as directors or alternate directors on Coca-Cola FEMSA's board. [Note: a director of SunTrust Banks of Georgia, a bank closely associated with Coca-Cola since 1919 and a creditor of Deval Patrick, also holds a seat on the Coca-Cola FEMSA board.]

In addition, documents admittedly created by Coca-Cola (i.e., letters to consumers and a statement to shareholders) acknowledge control over workplace practices and its right to inspect the plants to ensure that local managers abide by human rights conventions and domestic law.

Deval Patrick was sitting on the dais at Coca-Cola's April 2004 shareholders' meeting in Wilmington, Del. while I stood at a microphone, representing a Chicago resident who holds 3,000 shares of Coke stock. I was trying to raise many of the issues that made Coca-Cola executives uncomfortable. Suddenly, someone slugged me from behind, I was assaulted by four others, and told to leave the meeting. I assumed the uniformed and plainclothes personnel were on-duty Wilmington City police. Only later did I learn that the men representing themselves as city police on duty were hired to "moonlight" by either Coca-Cola or the hotel.

This raises serious civil rights questions. If someone is breaking the law, police off duty have an obligation and a right to arrest people who are committing a crime, but off-duty police should have no right to represent themselves as police to get a private citizen to do something that a corporation wants that citizen to do.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that, as I was being escorted out of the meeting, "Daft, at the podium watching the events, turned and said quietly, We shouldn't have done that. Then speaking into his microphone, Daft said, Security people, please stand down. Stand down, please, please." At the same time, Deval Patrick can be seen on the official videocast of the meeting, walking off the stage.

Resigned from Coke to become consultant—to Coke

The next day, The Washington Post ran a story claiming that Deval Patrick's decision "this month to resign" was due to his frustration over then-CEO Daft's decision not to allow an independent investigation that Patrick felt would clear Coca-Cola's name to proceed. According to the Post, Patrick "had grown tired of the internal politics along with the long commute between Atlanta and Boston."

However, Patrick stayed on with Coca-Cola through 2004 supposedly to help with the transition of his leaving. On April 8, 2005, the Boston Herald reported:

"Deval Patrick has inked a consulting deal with his ex-employer Coca-Cola that puts $2.1 million into his pocket as he inches closer to a decision to run for governor in 2006.

"The 12-month consulting deal, while not a political contribution, could help Patrick close the fundraising gap with Attorney General Tom Reilly….

" One contribution from Coca Cola makes you even with Tom Reilly in the fund-raising department, said political consultant Scott Ferson. That's the real thing."

Here’s why I referred earlier to the huge sum Mr. Patrick has collected to keep his mouth shut. The same Herald article said: “Under the deal revealed yesterday, Patrick cannot sue the company for any reason and has promised not to work for another company or reveal any company secrets through Jan. 1, 2007.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 8, 2005 reported:

"…Coke announced it will pay $2.1 million to its ex-general counsel, Deval Patrick, to work with the company from now through the end of the year. That amounts to $233,333 per month.

"Patrick has had a long and often messy split with Coke. In April 2004, the company announced his resignation. Days later, the company reversed course and said he would remain for the year.

"In July 2004, Coke's board issued Patrick an apology, saying he had acted in a highly professional, diligent and competent manner, a move that countered reports of criticism of his work.

"On Thursday, when Coke disclosed its deal with Patrick, the company said he will be an independent contractor with no obligation to work any particular hours during any period of time…"

Coca-Cola starts to feel the pressure

In April 2005, just before Coca-Cola's annual meeting, the company felt heavy pressure from the Killer Coke campaign and from the University Senate at New York University (NYU), the nation's largest private university, which gave Coca-Cola a deadline to support an independent investigation or else the university might, in response to student demands, remove and ban future sales of Coca-Cola products in university facilities.

At the same time, New York City Comptroller William Thompson, on behalf of the city's retirement systems, filed a shareholder resolution stating "that the shareholders request that the Company sponsor the sending of an independent delegation of inquiry to Colombia to examine the charges of collusion in anti-union violence that have been made against officials of Coca-Cola's bottling plants in that country, and that that delegation includes representatives from U.S. and Colombian human rights organizations." (The retirement system owns more than five million shares of Coca-Cola stock.)

Coca-Cola snubbed both NYU and Thompson and said it had a better idea. It hired a Los Angeles firm, Cal Safety Compliance Corp., to do an "independent" investigation. Cal Safety's bogus report exonerating Coke was commissioned and paid for by Coke. Even before this episode, Cal Safety's monitoring record had been widely discredited in publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times to Business Week. The national organization, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), stated at the time: "Cal-Safety is not regarded as a credible monitoring organization within the mainstream worker rights advocate community as a result of its track record of missing egregious violations in high profile cases and its flawed monitoring methodology."

USAS also described the results of a thorough investigation into Cal Safety's monitoring methodology by Dr. Jill Esbenshade, in her book, Monitoring Sweatshops. She conducted extensive interviews with Cal-Safety auditors and directly observed the company's labor auditing in practice. In many key areas, she found that Cal Safety failed to adhere to minimum accepted standards for competent factory investigation.

Coca-Cola, through newly-hired Director of Global Labor Relations Ed Potter, created a "Commission" in May 2005 consisting of representatives of major universities and prominent worker rights advocacy organizations, including the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), the Solidarity Center and USAS. The Commission was expected to develop a methodology for conducting an independent investigation of Coca-Cola's complicity with the paramilitaries in Colombia that have targeted for violence the leaders of SINALTRAINAL who were organizing Coca-Cola bottling plants. When the Commission actually asserted its independence—by kicking out Mr. Potter so that it could be truly independent—Coca-Cola backed away and began finding reasons to delay and obstruct the commission's work. Mr. Potter insisted that the attorneys for SINALTRAINAL and the individual victims of violence agree that any findings of the Commission, as well as any evidence uncovered by the Commission, could not be used in the SINALTRAINAL/ILRF/Steelworkers court case. Because this demand would require them to violate the rules of legal ethics, something Mr. Potter knew, the lawyers refused.

In December 2005, NYU announced it would remove all Coca-Cola products from campus facilities because the company failed to comply with demands for an independent investigation into alleged labor violations in Colombia.

In April 2006, the New York City Employee Retirement System and the Presbyterian Church USA co-filed a resolution again seeking an independent investigation. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola continued to lose ground as two dozen colleges and universities kicked Coke products off their campuses and large labor unions in the U.S. and Europe resolved to ban the sale and distribution of Coke at their facilities and functions. Some called on their members to boycott Coke products and/or SunTrust Banks, deemed "the Bank of Killer Coke." Among those involved were the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), CommunicationsWorkers of America (CWA), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT).

In response, Coca-Cola concocted another public relations scheme to make it appear that they were finally agreeing to an "independent" investigation — this time by the International Labor Organization (ILO) of the United Nations. Although Mr. Patrick no longer had a formal working relationship with Coke, it was clear that his legalistic and obstructive legacy lingered on.

Our Campaign issued a press release on April 17, 2006, highlighting why the ILO could never be considered an independent third party that could conduct an unbiased investigation of Coke's abuses, The release stated:

"First, regarding the Colombia situation…Coca-Cola North America President Donald Knauss wrote: On March 2nd, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) announced that it requested the International Labor Organization (ILO) to investigate and evaluate past and present labor relations and workers' rights practices of the Coca-Cola bottling operations in Colombia…

"Since the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke began in 2003, the IUF has opposed efforts by students on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the non-IUF union representing most unionized Coke workers in Colombia, to ban Coke products from their campuses and student unions. The union in Colombia affiliated with the IUF that represents Coke workers is SICO, a company union with 40 to 50 Coke workers. SICO replaced SINALTRAINAL after SINALTRAINAL's union officer Isidro Gil was assassinated by paramilitaries inside the Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant and his local union was crushed…

"Mr. Knauss also wrote: Questions concerning the ILO investigation and evaluation should be directed to Ms. Sally Paxton, Executive Director, Social Dialogue. In an April 12 phone conversation with Ray Rogers, Ms. Paxton contradicted at least two crucial points in Mr. Knauss's letter. First, she emphasized that the ILO would only do an assessment of current working conditions, not of past labor relations practices. Second, she insisted that the ILO was not going to conduct an investigation, adding that there won't even be an assessment of the parent company Coca-Cola, only an assessment of the enterprises in Colombia.

"When asked who would fund the assessment, Ms. Paxton responded, The money will come from outside donors or the regular budget. That has not yet been decided. Ms. Paxton said that the model developed for Better Factories Cambodia, a project of the ILO, would be used in the Colombia assessment. According to the ILO website, 'Better Factories Cambodia aims to improve working conditions in Cambodia's export garment factories. It combines independent monitoring with finding solutions, through suggestions to management, training, advice and information.' The ILO website adds that the outside donors for the Cambodian project included the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, whose council is entirely composed of executives from the Cambodian garment industry. Does this mean that the ILO will seek or accept funding from the American Beverage Assn., whose board includes Donald Knauss himself and other Coke executives?

"The ILO has a tripartite structure, consisting of 28 representatives of governments, 14 representatives of employers and 14 representatives of labor. Labor observers and advocates who are familiar with the ILO say that the organization is heavily skewed against workers, since most government representatives align themselves with the employer representatives. Imagine if this multinational body was simply a U.S. body. What chance would workers have to advance any part of their agenda? Because of the stranglehold over the Congress that corporate lobbyists enjoy, U.S. labor can't even get legislation enacted to protect workers' basic rights.

"Why is Coca-Cola so comfortable with Ms. Paxton overseeing this so-called investigation and evaluation? Ms. Paxton was a partner in private practice at Fulbright and Jaworski, concentrating in civil litigation at both the trial and appellate levels in a variety of subjects, including labor and employment law, according to her biography on the ILO's site. The Fulbright & Jaworski website states that the firm represents companies in lawsuits involving disputes under collective bargaining agreements and defends employers before the National Labor Relations Board—not quite the resume of an impartial juror or an unbiased administrator. The law firm has represented ExxonMobil, Duke Energy, Merck & Co and other companies with questionable records on matters involving ethics, exploitation and/or environmental concerns.

"Edward E. Potter, Coca-Cola's Director of Global Labor Relations and Workplace Accountability, serves on the Applications of Conventions Committee within the International Labor Organization. He is currently the head spokesperson for the entire Employers' Group, a powerful position within the ILO structure to promote the interests of big business and thus the interests of Coca-Cola. In addition, Potter leads the U.S. employer delegation to the ILO's annual conference that is coordinated through the United States Council for International Business, which is on the ILO's governing body.

"Over the past year, Potter has demanded that