The Coca-Cola Company

Company Supports Request For Labor Review



March 10, 2006 edition

On March 3, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) issued a news release stating that it is requesting the International Labor Organization (ILO) to assess labor relations and workers' rights practices of the Coca-Cola system in Colombia. The ILO is a specialized multilateral organization within the United Nations that is responsible for establishing international labor standards. The IUF is a global union federation that represents the majority of Coca-Cola system union workers. We support the IUF in this effort and, in fact, have sent our own request for assessment to the ILO.

"We hope that by cooperating with the ILO, we can put questions about our labor relations practices in Colombia behind us," said Ed Potter, the Company's director of Global Labor Relations. "We are proud of our labor relations practices and are determined to do everything in our power to protect our employees from dangerous situations in difficult areas."

In March 2005, The Coca-Cola Company signed a joint statement with the IUF acknowledging we are an internationally representative body of unionized workers around the world and affirming that Coca-Cola system workers are allowed to exercise their rights to union membership and collective bargaining without pressure, interference, fear of retaliation, repression or any other form of discrimination. At that time we also committed to meeting twice a year with IUF delegates to discuss, at a minimum, our practices in human and trade union rights and labor relations.

The March 3 announcement is the result of a February 28 meeting with an IUF delegation at Coca-Cola headquarters, as well as prior communications between senior Coca-Cola labor relations leaders and IUF representatives.

Our Company has completed previous third-party assessments of our system's labor relations practices in Colombia, including a spring 2005 assessment by Cal Safety Compliance, a respected, certified social compliance auditor. That audit and previous assessments confirmed that workers in our system in Colombia enjoy freedom of association, collective bargaining rights and a work atmosphere free of anti-union intimidation.

"We are committed to working with international labor organizations, non-governmental organizations and even harsh critics of our Company to better understand root causes of workers' rights problems and to develop appropriate solutions," Potter said. "The IUF and the ILO are ideally suited to help us demonstrate our global leadership as, together, we strive to improve labor relations and workers' rights practices worldwide."

The IUF, which consists of 359 trade unions in 125 countries, has more than 2.8 million members worldwide, including over 126,000 within the Coca-Cola system. The ILO, which promotes social justice and human and labor rights, is recognized as a leading authority on international labor standards.

Read the IUF press release, go there »