Guatemalan Lawsuit Filed Against Coca-Cola (2010)

In February 2010 a lawsuit was filed against Coca-Cola alleging a campaign of violence against two Guatemalan trade unionists and their families by the management of a company that owns two Coca Cola bottling plants in Guatemala.  The lawsuit was dismissed in November 2010.

The two trade unionists who filed the lawsuit are José Armando Palacios, who was forced to flee to the U.S. in early 2006, and José Alberto Vicente Chávez, whose son and nephew were murdered and whose daughter was gang-raped on March 1, 2008. The case of Mr. Vicente was cited in the appendix to a pending CAFTA labor complaint filed by Guatemalan trade unions and the AFL-CIO in 2008.

The case of Mr. Palacios was first highlighted in the U.S. in a worker rights petition to the U.S. Trade Representative filed by USLEAP and the Washington Office on Latin America in 2005.  Mr. Palacios had been fired for union organizing and then faced increasingly violent intimidation in 2005 as he sought reinstatement.  USLEAP worked extensively to support Mr. Palacios’s efforts for reinstatement and security in 2005 and, after he had to flee Guatemala in February 2006, in successful efforts to secure political asylum for himself and visas for his wife and daughter.   USLEAP also provided support to Mr. Palacios in his initial negotiations with Coca-Cola in 2006 and 2007.  

USLEAP’s engagement with Mr. Palacois has been mis-characterized in the lawsuit, in accompanying emails sent to list serves, Indymedia, and others, and on the Killer Coke website.  USLEAP has prepared a summary of USLEAP’s extensive support for Mr. Palacios that provides a more accurate picture.