Coca Cola announced recently they had made $678 million in 2007. This is no surprise, Coca Cola is a huge multi-national whose products can be purchased at any given corner of the world. Coca Cola possesses great influence and power, both economic and political. This has manifested it­self countless times in Colombia and in other areas of the world where trade unionists have been threatened and in many cases, murdered by right-wing paramil­itaries operating at the behest of Coca cola.

“Terror­ist Coca Cola trade unionists” will be dealt with “by death, torture, cut to pieces, coup de grace... no more protests”. These are the remarks of a balaclava clad spokesperson for the AUC Black Eagles – an outfit doing the bidding of Coca Cola in preventing Colombian workers from organising their workplaces. It is not surprising that 200 Colombian trade unionists are killed every year.

In the past 10 years, the para­militaries have murdered 9 Coca Cola employees because of their links to the struggle for improved conditions in the workplace. The paramilitaries haven’t confined their attacks to the trade unionists either. Efraim Guer­rero, one of the main organisers re­fused to bow to threats and shortly afterwards members of his family were targeted. His sister, brother in law, a nephew and a cousin have been murdered in an effort to deter him.

In 1996, a trade unionist was murdered in a bottling plant. Two days after, the paramilitaries returned and forced the workers to resign from the trade union under the threat of execu­tion. Without a trade union, the workers found themselves sacked and replaced by labourers earning $250 less per month.

When not murdering and intimidating trade union ac­tivists, Coca Cola has a disastrous environ­mental record. In India, their water is taken from ground­water resources close to plants. This depletes the water that locals would otherwise use for farming and for drinking. This is particularly severe in the drought-stricken region of Ra­jasthan, were environmentalists are lobbying for the closure of the bottling plant there.

Coca cola were handing out a waste product from factories to farm­ers claiming it was a pesticide. A BBC study later revealed the waste contained high levels of toxic metals that can lead to blood damage and cancers.

Coca Cola is set to spend $2 billion on advertising over the next two years. The company has been hit by a %4 decrease in profit and sees the need to urgently improve its image. Can a boycott campaign of Killer Coke effec­tively work here in Ireland? We would argue not without the intervention of trade unions here in the plight of Co­lombian workers./p>