Venezuelan workers seize Coca-Cola factories
 Photo: Reuters/Jorge Silva |
On Oct. 23, hundreds of Venezuelan workers blockaded Coca-Cola factories and corporate offices. Some 10,000 more camped out in front of the corporation’s 75 warehouses around the country.
Demonstrators claim that the more than 15,000 workers laid off over the last 10 years deserve severance pay from Coca-Cola Femsa, the U.S. corporation’s Venezuelan affiliate.
“This blockade is just the prelude to Coca-Cola being nationalized and turned over to the Venezuelan state,” protest leader Nixon Lopez told the BBC on Oct. 24. “We’re showing the world that no multinational company can just come here to humiliate Venezuelan employees.”
A special commission of the Venezuelan National Assembly had given the company until Oct. 18 to offer suitable reparations. After they failed to do so, VNA member Iris Valera stated, “We will not allow a single truck from Coca-Cola-Femsa to leave with soft drinks. Now we will see if they will pay workers what they owe them.”
Workers estimate that the company owes them up to $2.8 million.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola Femsa condemned the action as “illegal” and “unconstitutional” saying their demands were settled by the country’s justice system.
On Oct. 27, the workers ended the blockades after lawmakers allied with President Hugo Chávez pledged to pursue the case with the Supreme Court.
Report cites Cuba as the only sustainable economy
Cuba is the only country in the world with sustainable development, according to the mainstream ecological watchdog group the World Wildlife Federation.
An Oct. 24 WWF report was meant to highlight dangers to the world ecosystem. It identifies two indices of ecological balance: the index of human development and the “ecological fingerprint,” measuring how much energy and resources a nation consumes per capita.
 Photo: Granma |
At the present rate, the report notes, by 2050 humanity will consume natural resources and energy equivalent to twice the resources estimated to be available on the planet. Such growth is unsustainable.
The report includes a “blacklist” of 10 countries that far exceed the standards of sustainable economies, measured by the two indices. That list includes the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Kuwait and others.
In contrast, only socialist Cuba meets both standards—human development and “ecological fingerprint”—for sustainable development. “Cuba maintains a high level of development, according to the United Nations, thanks to its high level of literacy and its high life expectancy, while its ‘ecological footprint’ is not large,” said Jonathan Loh, one of the report’s authors.
The study does not cite the country’s socialist system and planned economy, oriented for the needs of the country’s people rather than the quest for profits, as a factor in Cuba’s sustainable economy.
