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Coca-Cola may face US boycott over allegations

ATLANTA: Coca-Cola Co, facing allegations of racism, could face a U.S. boycott, a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) said on Saturday.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft drink company, denied allegations last week that it discriminated against black workers and engaged in a campaign to fire or reprimand black dissenters who raised concerns about racism at the beverage giant.

Last year, a group of former and current black Coca-Cola employees filed a lawsuit alleging the company tolerated a pattern of discrimination in pay scales, promotions and performance reviews. Coca-Cola has denied the charges. A court is considering whether to grant class-action status to the case.

"It needs to be understood by Coke officials we will not tolerate injustice. If they insist, it could result in a selective buying campaign," Rev. Joseph Wheeler, the NAACP's regional director in Atlanta, told a meeting of former and current black Coca-Cola employees.

Wheeler said he would raise the issue of a boycott at the NAACP's next regional meeting in two weeks if Coca-Cola insisted on "pursuing a policy of retaliation" against black workers.

The NAACP is currently waging a boycott of South Carolina's tourism industry over that state's refusal to remove a Confederate flag from atop its state capitol building.

Coca-Cola refused to comment on either the meeting or the threat of a boycott, which came just one day after the company backed off an offer to its laid-off workers to sign a release waiving all rights to sue the company in exchange for enhanced severance benefits. In January, Coca-Cola announced it would cut 6,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its work force.

Coca-Cola had been accused of using the waiver to limit the number of blacks who might be eligible to join the potential class-action lawsuit. A modified waiver does not apply to any claims against the company filed or pending in court as of Jan. 12, 2000, the date of an amended complaint in the lawsuit.

"We applaud the company's judgment. We think it was the right thing to do," said Larry Jones, a black human resources manager who claimed in an interview with Reuters that he was fired about two weeks ago for raising the waiver issue directly with Coca-Cola President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Stahl.

Jones, who helped organise the meeting on Saturday, renewed his allegations that the company discriminated against black employees, whom he claimed worked in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation and were sometimes exposed to ugly racial slurs.

Earlier this year, Coca-Cola announced Carl Ware, the company's most senior black executive, would not retire but instead take over a new global public affairs division.

Coca-Cola closed at 49-15/16 a share on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.-Reuters