Business Ethics

August 23, 2000  Mitsubishi Admits Covering Up Defects By MIKI TANIKAWA
OKYO, Aug. 22 -- Mitsubishi Motors admitted today that it had systematically concealed customer complaints about tens of thousands of defective automobiles since 1977.  The admission by Mitsubishi, Japan's No. 4 automaker, came a month after its top executive had denied accusations that it had covered up problems that included faulty fuel tanks, clutches, crankshafts and brakes. NY TIMES http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/082300mitsubishi-coverup.html

Sept 12, 2002 - Teamsters Union Protests at Coke Meeting By GREG WINTER.  Accusing the Coca-Cola Company of "closing its eyes" to the intimidation, torture and assassination of union workers who bottle its drinks, the Teamsters union demanded yesterday that the company adopt and enforce strict labor standards for the manufacture of its products around the world. Standing beside a car-sized inflatable rat draped with the Coca-Cola logo in Manhattan, James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters president, accused the company of standing by and abdicating responsibility for the murder of eight union leaders who organized workers at Coke bottling plants in Colombia over the last decade, a charge the company vehemently denies.

[CARNIVAL OF RESISTANCE OUTSIDE the MEETING] - "We're demanding Coke take control, or we will," Mr. Hoffa said, leading the crowd in a chant, "We're not going to take it anymore."

[SPECTACLE] = Inside the meeting, the rally scarcely had an effect on the air of celebration. Charlie Rose was host of a virtual Academy Awards of the company's global influence, peppered with surprise appearances by Wynton Marsalis, Donald Sutherland, Jon Bon Jovi, Cal Ripken Jr. and Muhammad Ali.

... Last July, a Colombian union sued Coke in a federal court in Miami, accusing the company and its Latin American subsidiaries of hiring paramilitary forces for the "systematic intimidation, kidnapping, detention and murder" of union workers in Colombia.