24 June, 2010Workers at a Coca-Cola plant in Pakistan face violence, corruption, sleaze and increasingly criminal approaches by the plant management trying to undermine and disband the union. The management uses new tactics making jobs precarious by creating a bogus employer
PAKISTAN: As reported by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, IUF, (http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/415) after formation of their union at Coca-Cola's bottling plant in the southern Pakistan city of Multan in June 2009, members have met with death threats, abduction, firings, extortion, forgery and fraud. The Multan plant is part of Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Limited. (CCBPL), jointly owned by Turkish bottler Coca-Cola Icecek (CCI) and The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) based in Atlanta.
Already at the stage when the union prepared for its founding congress on June 19, 2009, management began a campaign of blackmail and extortion targeting 36 active union supporters.
Later, after the union attempted to get official registration union officers received "night visits" to their private homes on June 27 and 28. Eight Coca-Cola Multan managers tried to force union officers to quit the union or sign a letter withdrawing the union's application for registration. Due to the management pressure on the authorities the union application of registration is still awaiting approval.
To prevent legal recognition of the workers' organization the management set up a yellow union. Later it was revealed that the signature of the President of the newly formed yellow union, Muhammad Shafi, was fake.
From a fake union the management moved on to a fake employer tactic. Letters of dismissal were sent to union activists from an individual labour contractor never seen or known by the workers during their employment at the plant. Through forgery of official documents and massive fraud, management is attempting to establish the fiction that union members at CCBPL are not in fact employed by the company. This is to exclude them from any collective bargaining relationship with Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola management claims 283 workers at Multan plant are employed by a separate contractor.
IMF strongly condemns the outrageous behaviour of the management at Coca-Cola plant in Pakistan and sends a strong message of solidarity to the workers supporting them in their fight for creation of a genuine union. To send your protest letter to the Coca-Cola management visit the IUF campaign page at http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=514