Boycott Coke

Put aside that Coke, Tab, or Sprite-another boycott against CocaCola products is off and running.

The second consumer boycott against Coca-Cola in four years was declared on April 6 by the International Union of Food and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) in support of 460 Guatemalan Coke workers. The workers have been peacefully occupying the Coke bottling plant since February 17, when the franchise's owners claimed bankruptcy and closed the plant (see MM, April 1984). Workers and the IUF hope to force the

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola corporation to reopen the Guatemala City plant and to respect a 1980 agreement to oversee management at the franchise and cooperate with the workers' union.

In addition to the international boycott, Coke workers in IUF-affiliated unions in Norway, Sweden, and Finland have announced that they plan to halt production indefinitely at their plants beginning May 7. Workers in Australian and Canadian Coke plants may follow suit. German and Norwegian unions have made financial contributions to the Guatemalan workers, while a delegation of U.S. trade unionists visited the plant in March to confer with the workers and to demonstrate support for their action U.S. labor and religious groups also staged shareholder and picketing actions at Coca-Cola's annual shareholder meeting in Houston, Texas on April 18.

Such coordinated efforts are not new for the IUF. They organized similar pressure against Coca-Cola in 1980 to further the Guatemalan workers' prolonged struggle for union recognition. The campaign soon led the Coca-Cola parent company to install new owners at the plant and negotiate a contract with the union. "We hope this campaign will be even bigger," says Sally Cornwell, North American representative of the IUF.

- Bob Stix

Stockmarket tips from ex-spies

In a world of coups, expropriations, and economic sabotage, what's a smart investor to do? Well, a group of ex-spies believe they can offer investors a leg up on global political events through a monthly newsletter they call Investment Intelligence, according to a solicitation that recently came through our offices.

The newsletter's promoters boast of employing "retired agents from the CIA...NSA...Britain's MI-5 ... and Israel's Mossad" and other intelligence agencies to monitor and analyze fastbreaking geopolitical events that, as they put it, "will cost you a lot, or make you plenty. One or the other." These "trained professionals" in information gathering, we are told, have "access to the intelligence black market ...to a lifetime of professional contacts," and "know how to go behind the scenes."

Besides slipping readers hot tips which promise to land investors "bonanzas" or save them from disaster, the editors offer to pass along advice from the devious world of agents, such as: a "fresh perspective" on privacy and taxes ("When it comes to tax avoidance, many of the best-known strategies were first originated by the CIA," they claim); how to travel incognito (legally avoiding customs reporting requirements); how to legally get around Treasury reporting regulations for foreign accounts; and how to obtain a legal second passport, possibly with diplomatic immunity.

The newsletter also promises to let you in on the dirt that inside people know about. Consider enticing tidbits like these which are supposed to come with every issue: "A certain left-wing, antiAmerican head of state, in Europe, has been on the CIA payroll for the past 19 years"

Long-distance typists

Office work may be the next American industry to follow blue collar manufacturing jobs overseas in search of lower wages. Union leaders and economic analysts have recognized that a major trend in the years ahead may be the export of "data processing" jobs - particularly repetitive computerized tasks like financial record-keeping. But figures on the extent of this trend have been hard to come by.

The Barbados Manufacturers Association has helped fill that gap with information on Barbados contained in their special eight page advertising section in a recent Business Week. Barbados scored a coup in its efforts to become a world data processing center when American Airlines moved most of its data processing operations to Barbados in 1983. Presently five U.S. companies have such operations in Barbados (see chart).

The advertisement also claims that foreign investors, especially in electronics, are "cozying up" to Barbados. And, the U.S. invasion of Grenada "hasn't hurt" either, according to the ad: "With Prime Minister Tom Adams one of the architects of intervention, and Barbados the launch site as well as communications center, the nation drew world attention."

Drink Coke-or else

Coca-Cola takes its competition very seriously-so seriously that one of its distributors is bullying a local pizza joint for failing to agree that "Coke is it."

In February, the management of a Coca-Cola distribution plant in Rockville, Maryland issued a menacingsounding memo to workers warning them against visiting Francesca's, a nearby pizza parlor popular with the plant's employees that serves Pepsi instead stead of Coke. "Any employee frequenting this outlet in the future will be strongly encouraged to seek employment with the company this dealer presently deals with," the memo stated.

After Francesca's suddenly found its clientele gone and complained to Coke, the company did some quick backpeddling. A second memo stated that workers are free to eat where they want-if they don't wear the Coca-Cola ' uniform. But Francesca's says workers , have not returned to the pizza parlor and has filed suit against the company.

"These guys are intimidated," says Bernice Durbin, an owner of the restaurant. "It's unfair what [the Coke plant] is doing to us," sheadds. "This is free enterprise. They can't tell us what to sell."