'Killer Coke'

Coca-Cola apparently turned a blind eye to being harassed and killed at bottlers' plants in Columbia. Right wing paramilitaries were apparently trying to break the back of the union -- and threatening and killing employees of Coke bottlers who were union members, was one way of reaching their end. The bottlers' of course, prefer not to deal with unions, as they could then fire full-time employees and replace them with cheaper part-time staff. That's the allegation anyway, and after reading 'Killer Coke' or Innocent Abroad?, it makes me wonder about Coca-Cola's innocence. Regardless of whether the bottlers' supported the paramilitaries or not, Coke did nothing about the problem. In fact, they may have benefited from the union's woes. Even so, Coke didn't lift a hand to do anything wrong.

On the other hand however, Coke didn't make much effort to do anything right either. They claim, according to the article, that they took out newspaper ads condemning the action of the paramilitaries. So what? That's advertising. The fact that Coke seems to forget is that there's a new tide coming in out there -- it's called social responsibility. The absence of wrongdoing doesn't equate to benevolence -- the presence of active participation in doing the right thing, does.