Death threats, abduction and extortion at Coca-Cola, Pakistan

Since forming a union at Coca-Cola's bottling plant in the southern Pakistan city of Multan in June 2009, members have met with death threats, abduction, firings, extortion, forgery and fraud. Management's vicious response to the workers' fight for a union is a story drenched with violence, corruption, sleaze and escalating criminality.

Management's response to union organizing in Multan was immediately hostile. As the union prepared for its founding congress on June 19, 2009, management began a campaign of blackmail and extortion targeting the 36 sales and merchandizing officers (SMOs) at the plant identified as active union supporters. On June 8 all SMOs were ordered to sign stamped, blank legal documents (the type used for affidavits or confessions) and to hand over signed blank personal checks. Those who refused this clearly illegal order were ordered to stay in the plant and barred from their sales routes – resulting in lost sales commissions amounting to a third of their monthly income. For 20 days SMOs were harassed into handing over these checks illegally. Four who refused were ultimately dismissed, together with three "temporary" workers directly employed at the plant, all of them strong union supporters.

Regular employees were transferred to a fictitious labour contractor to prove that they don't actually work for Coke.

Attempts to register the union was followed by “night visits” to the private homes of union officers on June 27 and 28; eight Coca-Cola Multan managers tried to force union officers to quit the union or sign a letter withdrawing the union’s application for registration. On the morning of June 28, union joint secretary Riaz Hussain was abducted by managers, held in an unknown location and threatened until released later that day.

Local management were behind death threats against union officers and their families. Unknown men began visiting the homes of the union officers, including general secretary Muhammad Ashiq Bhutta, who is also national information secretary of the NFFBTW. They delivered a clear message from Coca-Cola Multan management: withdraw from the union or you or your family members could have “an accident” and be injured or killed.

To further block any possibility of the workers winning legal recognition of their union, management set up its own yellow union, called the “Workers Welfare (Mazdoor) Union”. Through a combination of bribery and threats, CCBPL Multan management secured registration of their fake union on August 13. The fake union created by the company was exposed when its "president" admitted to not having attended its founding -- and indeed denied that he was president.

You can send a protest letter to Coca Cola here.