Allegedly also Coca-Cola, Drummond and even some local companies like Postobón have been involved with paramilitary groups and sponsored crimes against civilians - and haven't faced any consequences. But this is a good precedent.
Certain there are others. Naomi Klein wrote about Ford paying to have its own Argentine employees murdered during the junta in the 70s, apparently to prevent unionization.
Are you aware of the history of labor organizing in the states...? Not meant as an attack, I'm genuinely wondering. Strike breakers routinely killed people, destroyed property, cars would have sticks of dynamite chucked into them, and famously the coal miners blew up a fucking bridge.
I think people tend to think that modern politics is how all politics was done and... nah. Before we had more robust judicial, communication, and surveillance systems, if someone threatened your business and you were wealthy enough, having them killed and dumped in a bog was 100% on the fuckin table.
> Are you aware of the history of labor organizing in the states...?
No, I'm not. It sounds like a very interesting read, though. I don't think those things tended to happen over here, beyond mafia-style illegal dealings.
Americans get taught a weird fictionalized version of their own history where political violence ended at the Civil War, conveniently overlooking anything that might be awkward to explain in the present day. Little things like General MacArthur opening fire on veterans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army ; MOVE bombings; Tulsa massacre https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/12/tuls... ; the general high levels of violence in the civil rights era; lynching, and so on.
One of my favorite stories from the Civil Rights era is the fact that California created the template for modern gun control as a direct response to the Black Panthers policing the Police with open-carried guns (just like, standing there, armed, while police did their jobs in Black communities), and the white establishment at the time absolutely shit bricks at the notion of the negro having firepower and demanded it be regulated by none other than Governor Ronald Reagan.
It's incredibly unjust that companies are punished for paying "protection money" (read: "pay us or we burn your property and employees to the ground.")
