In India, Coca Cola new greenfield site in Khed is impacting community and management is threatening them with legal action for demanding employment opportunities.
In December 2023, when Coca Cola announced greenfield site in Khed block of Ratnagiri district, local community provided all the required support including lands. In tripartite meetings, community was promised development through rural infrastructure and employment opportunities. Despite regular reminders to company, management deliberately delayed any action and now denied employment.
When company failed to take any action after series of requests, community decided to launch a peaceful protest action but company approached the community leadership and promised positive outcome in scheduled bipartite meeting on May 30, 2025. However, the company again refused to commit direct employment and factory manager choose to remain absent from the meeting. Due to failed meeting, community started preparing for protest action but then company provided false information to local police officials to send intimidating notices to community leaders.
After these threatening notices, community condemned this action and decided silent protest which was a legitimate and democratic expression of their resistance against the unfair recruitment practices and broken promises. Still, a legal action is taken against 22 community leaders and around 450 community members including women.
Local communities denied jobs by a big multinational Coca Cola company and refusal to provide opportunities including quality apprenticeships. Then instead of recognising these legitimate concerns and needs, Coca Cola India allows it to become an issue for the police and sits back and watches legal action against communities including women. Meanwhile, company spends millions in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds portraying their different image but what’s happening with communities in Khed block is the true face of Coca Cola.
It also shows the disregard for local communities that Coca-Cola shows for cane cutters in the same state of India i.e., Maharashtra – again spending millions on high level NGO initiatives but not doing anything to assist the affected cane cutter workers and their communities on ground.
This situation could have been resolved with regular social dialogue with the committee members and fair practise but the company management instead chose to respond with force. This use of aggressive means like intimidation and police action against community most of whom are youth, women and elderly citizens are deeply disturbing. These actions of the company do not only harm their right to employment but also their virtues dignity and justice.
Multinational companies like Coco-Cola get a generous amount of government support through public infrastructure and land acquisition, but when it comes to sharing benefits by creating employment opportunities these companies turn their backs against the locals.
It seems that Coco-Cola is just denying its basic corporate responsibility of respecting local communities, listening to their voices and fulfilling promises. Local governing institution (Gram Panchayat) passed a resolution to condemn this action of the Coca Cola Company against community and decided to continue holding company accountable.
The growth of the Coca Cola must not come at the cost of exploited rights and undemocratic actions. IUF Asia Pacific stand with the affected communities and all the affected people due to this situation and demand immediate intervention of The Coca Cola Company (TCCC).