SOME LATE-BREAKING ITEMS
FLORIDA JURY HOLDS CHIQUITA RESPONSIBLE FOR COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUAD
In an unprecedented legal development, a jury in he United Staes has held an American corporation legally liable for human rights atrocities abroad. A Florida jury on June 3, in a civil lawsuit brought by EarthRights InternationaL found Chiquita Brands guilty and liable for having knowingly financed a terrorist death squad in Colombia that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers that picked their fruit to prevent them from forming unions in the 1990’a and 2000’s.
Chiquita, like many U.S. corporations, reaps super profits abroad where it pays workers miserable wages. The jury found that Chiquita illegally funded a designated terrorist death squad to the tune of $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004, inflicting untold suffering, including brutal murders of innocent people in the Colombian regions of Uraba and Magdalena. Until recently, Colombia’s right-wing governments, have been loyal supporters of U.S. policies in Latin America.
“The verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed,” said one attorney, “but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep.” EarthRights declared that the verdict also “means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.”
Earth Rights, 7/3; Courtesy of Locker Associates, New York
AMAZON & TEAMSTERS AGREE TO AFFILIATE
In what Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, hailed as “an historic day for labor in America” his union has negotiated an agreement with the Teamsters Union to have the teamsters charter a new local known as Amazon Labor Union No. 1, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (ALU-IBT, Local 1). The union will represent or try to organize all AMAZON & TEAMSTERS AGREE TO AFFILIATE workers in New York City. The agreement still has to be ratified by ALU’s membership.
Two years ago, the ALU surprised everyone when it won a landmark election to organize 8,000 workers at the Amazon facility JFK8 on Staten Island, New York.
Labor Notes, 6/15
