Brazil raises minimum wage
Brazil’s center-left government has offered workers an inflation-busting 20 percent rise in the minimum wage that began Tuesday. Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party promised during last October’s elections to double the minimum wage within four years. The monthly minimum wage has been increased by more than the 15.9 percent inflation record for the 12 months to February to 240 reals ($71). But the increase will cause further inflationary pressures. Brazil’s central bank has raised interest rates five consecutive times to reign in inflation, caused by last year’s currency devaluation and high energy prices. The high interest rate is blamed for rising unemployment.
The minimum wage applies mainly to civil servants and has a significant impact on state finances because pensions are also indexed to it. The minimum wage is largely ignored by the private sector. A third of Brazil’s 176 million people live in poverty. (BBC)

Coke bottler faces death suit in legal precident
A US court has ruled that Coca-Cola’s main Latin American bottler can stand trial for allegedly hiring right-wing paramilitaries to kill and intimidate union leaders in Colombia. The United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund brought the $500 million suit on behalf on Colombia’s food industry union Sinaltrainal. Coca-Cola and its bottlers have rejected the allegations made by the suit. Panamerican Beverages, Coca-Cola’s main bottler in Latin America of which it owns about 25 percent, and Colombian bottler Bebidas y Alimentos (BA) now face a trial. The district judge in Miami excluded the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and its Colombian unit because its bottling agreement did not give it “explicit control” over labor issues in Colombia.
The ruling is unclear as to whether the case could proceed and no trial date has been set. The suit was filed in July 2001 over the murder by paramilitaries of four union members between 1995 and 1996 at the Coca-Cola bottling plant belonging to BA 250 kilometers northwest of Bogota. Colombia, where civil war claims over 20,000 lives annually, is considered by the International Labor Organization to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist.
The ruling is a legal precedent in that it is the first time a US judge has ordered a company to stand trial for alleged human-rights violations committed overseas under the Alien Tort Claims Act. Similar lawsuits are pending around the US against corporations including oil company Talisman for its operations in Sudan, and engineering firm Unocal over torture and slave labor allegations in Burma. Corporations usually succeed in getting such cases dismissed before they reach trial. (BBC)