Coca Cola and the Colombian Sinaltrainal Lawsuit - Essay Example

Section/# Coca Cola and the Colombian Sinaltrainal Lawsuit Whereas multinational companies like Coca Cola have nothing short of stellar reputations in many parts of the developed world, such is not the same case for many of the developing nations where the firm suffers from a string of human rights abuses, history of disregard for labor rights, torture, environmental disregard, and a litany of other factors. The particular case study which this analysis will consider is concentric upon the nation of Colombia and the means by which Coca Cola engaged in a process of determined intimidation, utilization of armed paramilitary groups to gain concessions, as well as possible murders and subsequent cover-ups. Yet, more than ascribing blame to a multinational firm that has perhaps broken the law and behaved in a highly egregious manner, understanding the logic behind why such a set of actions might have taken place, the way in which they occurred, and the different resources available to Coca Cola as a means of understanding the limits to which a given corporate entity will go to in order to protect its profit margins and maintain dominance at the expense of traditional corporate responsibility, civic behavior, and common morality. Furthermore, the way in which the court trial in Miami proceeded is also of special interest due in no small part to the fact that this too exhibited the level to which corruption in power and the cronyism of mega multinationals seemingly held all the cards in such a legal battle (Rostin 2001, p. 35). As a way of briefly encapsulating what lay at the core of the court case mentioned above, it is worth briefly laying out what the claimants brought against Coca Cola. Among other things, the claimants brought evidence that union organizers complaining about unfair treatment, poor wages, brutal conditions, and the alleged murder to several workers over a period of time that were heavily involved in the union agitation that had plagued the Coca Cola plant in Carepa, Colombia. The background to the instance was the fact that Colombian workers at the factory had been seeking to leverage the Coca Cola Corporation for a higher level of remuneration, benefits, and union representation by the Sinaltrainal Union which represented workers in Colombia. Obviously such an action would have not been in the best interests of Coca Cola Corporation as it would have weakened the position of the employer and given a stronger voice to the employees as a function of the collective bargaining that they would have been able to achieve. As a function of stopping such an eventuality from occurring, the Coca Cola Corporation stood accused of hiring armed groups of paramilitary thugs to intimidate, openly threaten, and use physical violence against workers as a means of discouraging further union activity (Greene 2004, p. 60). Finally, the claimants brought the cases of five dead workers that to a varying degree were related to efforts to unionize the Carepa workforce along with a mandatory forced gathering of workers, helped along by the presence of armed paramilitaries in which the workers were forced to sign anti-union statements expressing the desire, under coercion, that they had no interest in the Carepa facility becoming unionized. Cases of corporate malfeasance, cruelty, and even wrongful death are in and of themselves not unheard of; however, the level to which these allegations existed meant that they were on a scale that most within the corporate power structure had not faced previously. As such, the Sinaltrainal Union, the very same union whose members were allegedly intimidated, coerced, and ultimately murdered by the Coca Cola Corporation brought a lawsuit against the Coca Cola firm within the Miami district court; utilizing a little known tort that stated that foreign countries could be allowed to sue a US firm in the United States providing that they can prove that the tort has been committed in violation of “the law of nations” (Harish 2008, p. 45). The case itself languished in circuit court before eventually being dismissed on appeal by Coca Cola. Prior to the case ever being heard, the judge noted that he would not allow Coca Cola as such to be labeled as a prime defendant in the case; rather the two contract bottlers would instead stand trial instead. Eventually, as the case was dismissed, the allegations against the two contract bottlers itself was also dismissed. With regards to the corruption of the powerful, the case itself was interesting to note due to the fact that Coca Cola took the allegations, as would any multinational, extraordinarily seriously (Dorfman et al 2012 p. 5). This could of course be from the previous disasters that had occurred within India and the toxic practices that Coca Cola had been caught performing with relation to unsafe bottling practices, desertification of the countryside, and improper disposal of chemical waist. As a result of situations such as this, Coca Cola had learned that the penalty for under-reacting to such dire accusations could be the loss of a massive amount of market share (Walsh et al 2012, p. 110). As was the case in India, Coca Cola lost a huge market share to Pepsi Cola which even though the incident that has been mentioned occurred over a decade previously, has yet to be made up for in overall profits and market share within the Indian subcontinent. With this approach, Coca Cola hired its own contractor to perform what was to be an independent audit by the United Nations labor panel as a means of determining if there was an validity to the reports that the Colombian union representatives had brought against Coca Cola. Naturally, one can assume that Coca Cola would not have sought out such an avenue if it had not reached a scale that the public relations debacle that the case itself was affecting on the firm was minimal (Payne 2012, p.7). Furthermore, as is oftentimes the case with large multinational firms that have a disproportionate share of power within both the political, legal, and governmental structures of their host countries, the US delegate to the United Nations labor panel was in fact Coca Cola’s global relations representative (Madhaven 2012, p. 95). Such a blatantly non neutral position of analysis only serves to raise a litany of further questions within the mind of the reader with regards to the degree to which the Coca Cola Company expected any investigation to be decided in their favor regardless of guilt due to the level of connections that the firm enjoyed within such a preeminent body as the United Nations. The fact of the matter that the reader must consider first and foremost with relation to this rather comical self analysis that Coca Cola attempted to perform is that if the firm was capable of having well positioned individuals with a high degree of clout within such positions as the labor panel of the United Nations, it is equally understandable and highly probably that they also had very highly placed and influential individuals within the legal system of the circuit courts of the United States as well to ensure that the case brought by the Colombia Union never received mention or notice and merely remained shuffled from one appeal to another until it could finally be dismissed (Civil Procedure 2009, p. 581). In much the same way, the investigations that were promised to occur under the watchful eye of the United Nations were also stalled for nearly two and a half years. From such an approach it becomes painfully obvious that the main ideal that the primary shareholders at Coca Cola wanted to get across to the end consumer was the notion that they were somehow taking these allegations seriously (Cohen 2001, p. 83). As one can readily see, this was of course not the case; instead, Coca Cola was merely stalling for time and attempting to find any manner of ways to convince the end consumer that the products that are sold with their logo are not only safe for consumption but also devoid of any unfair labor practices which would have the effect of severely stifling the way in which the firm could expect to generate profits (Michalowsky 2006, p. 22). As has oftentimes been demonstrated in cases where large powerful entities seek to defend themselves against legal and public relations debacles, the victor is of course determined not based upon who has in fact wronged another but which side can utilize the higher number of resources in order to sway the case in their factor. Almost without exception the decision will be for the large multinational company as it has the resources, trained teams of political experts, and law professionals that can seek to ensure that each and every avenue of defense is utilized in order to make the firm out to be the victim of some type of smear campaign. Again, it is and remains beyond the scope of this analysis to definitively ascribe blame within the given situation; however, one would be remiss not to note the level to which Coca Cola has gone within this particular case in order to ensure that their name, markets, and business practice are without impeachability. Sadly, the level to which companies such as Coca Cola and others can leverage such a high degree of monetary and expert resources in order to ensure that they face minimal liability within a given situation necessarily ensures that instances such as the one that has been discussed within this particular case study present but a small threat to the continued viability of the firm. Rather than being held at least partially held accountable for the multitude of wrongdoings that such a case necessarily entailed, the firm was able to ensure that the case was tied up within circuit courts for long enough that the public relations debacle that it could have caused had effectively died into a non-news story. Moreover, the way in which the firm sought out and utilized key assets within the United Nations to perform a type of lip service with relation to praising Coca Cola’s labor practices is something that is wholly transparent and self-serving as well. References CIVIL PROCEDURE -- PLEADING REQUIREMENTS -- ELEVENTH CIRCUIT DISMISSES ALIEN TORT STATUTE CLAIMS AGAINST COCA-COLA UNDER IQBALS PLAUSIBILITY PLEADING STANDARD -- Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., No. 06-15851, 2009 WL 2431463 (11th Cir. Aug. 11, 2009) 2009, Harvard Law Review, 123, 2, pp. 580-587, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. COHEN, S. (2001). States of denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering. Cambridge, UK, Polity. Dorfman, L, Cheyne, A, Friedman, L, Wadud, A, & Gottlieb, M 2012, Soda and Tobacco Industry Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns: How Do They Compare?, Plos Medicine, 9, 6, pp. 1-7, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. GREEN, P., & WARD, T. (2004). State crime: governments, violence and corruption. London, Pluto Press. Harish, R, & Gopal, B 2008, Coca-Cola in India: A Responsible Corporate Citizen?, ICFAI Journal Of Corporate Governance, 7, 4, pp. 42-56, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Madhavan, A 2012, CSR at Coca-Cola, Vikalpa: The Journal For Decision Makers, 37, 2, pp. 94-98, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. MICHALOWSKI, R. J., & KRAMER, R. C. (2006). State-corporate crime: wrongdoing at the intersection of business and government. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press. PAYNE, B. K. (2012). White-collar crime: a text/reader. Los Angeles, SAGE. Roston, A 2001, ITS THE REAL THING: MURDER. US firms like Coca-Cola are implicated in Colombias brutality, Nation, 273, 7, pp. 34-38, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Walsh, H, & Dowding, T 2012, Sustainability and The Coca-Cola Company: The Global Water Crisis and Coca-Colas Business Case for Water Stewardship, International Journal Of Business Insights & Transformation, 4, pp. 106-118, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 January 2013. Read More