ILO to investigate conditions in Coca Cola in Colombia

international | anti-capitalism | other press Monday March 13, 2006 13:48 by Peter

IUF negotiate agreement on ILO investigation - Coke have yet to make official request of ILO

International Union of Foodworkers (IUF) and Coca-Cola agreement to request United Nations' ILO to conduct independent investigation of Coca-Cola labour practices in Colombia

Posted to the IUF website on 02-Mar-2006 - www.iuf.org

The IUF has consistently expressed serious concerns about labour relations practices in the Coca-Cola system's Colombian operations. Like others, we have supported the call for an independent investigation (rather than a Coca-Cola initiated internal assessment) as the only adequate response to reported serious rights violations. The IUF has now secured agreement with The Coca-Cola Company that both parties shall request the United Nations, through its International Labour Organization (ILO), to conduct such an investigation.

ILO poster on the killing of trade unionists in Colombia

The ILO, as the UN specialized agency responsible for developing and promoting international labour standards, is clearly the appropriate body to investigate the degree to which these internationally-recognized standards are in practice respected by the Coca-Cola system in Colombia.

The investigation will be in the hands of the ILO. The modalities and the findings of such an investigation will not be influenced by the IUF, The Coca-Cola Company or any part of the Coca-Cola system. Our purpose is to ensure that workers throughout the Coca-Cola system in Colombia can fully exercise the rights which are set out in the United Nations' ILO human and labour rights standards. We anticipate that the results of an ILO investigation will provide a credible basis on which to concretely address any issues that arise from the investigation.

The IUF has requested the ILO to conduct such an independent investigation. Based on the agreement with the company that we reached at our latest meeting on February 28 in Atlanta, we understand Coca-Cola will do the same.