Suit accuses DaimlerChrysler
in killings of Argentine workers
The Sacramento Bee
January 15, 2004
By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- Human rights activists on Wednesday sued DaimlerChrysler Corp., contending officials at a plant operated by the car maker in Argentina collaborated with death squads to "disappear" union activists during that country's military dictatorship almost 30 years ago.
The suit, filed here on behalf of 17 victims or their heirs, is the latest in a new wave of litigation in the U.S. courts, targeting asserted violations against union organizers in Central and South America by affiliates of U.S. businesses.
The DaimlerChrysler suit was filed in San Francisco and transferred to federal court in San Jose, near the company's Palo Alto research facility. The company has headquarters in Michigan and Germany.
Daniel Kovalik, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, declined to say how much money his clients would request in damages but said the company "certainly has a heavy liability here."
The suit alleges that Argentine state security forces acted under the direction of high-ranking officials of Mercedes-Benz Argentina, a DaimlerChrysler subsidiary, in kidnapping, torturing and, in many cases, killing union leaders designated "subversive" by the company. The abuses occurred during a period of intense political and labor unrest in Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
Among the victims were all of the members of a commission elected by workers at the Mercedes plant in González-Catan to represent them in talks about wages and working conditions, says the lawsuit.
A DaimlerChrysler official said the company hadn't received a copy of the suit and would withhold comment on it.
A month ago, however, an investigation commissioned by DaimlerChrysler and led by a Berlin law professor concluded that evidence failed to support persistent rumors of the company's involvement in the disappearance of 10 workers to suppress union activity. The report said only two of the 10 were labor activists.
It noted, however, that the company and the state security service had been in contact, and Kovalik said much of the report, "while purporting to exonerate, (is) quite damning to (the company's) cause."
He said the report documented several cases in which company officials passed on the names, addresses and sometimes the personnel files of workers to security forces, with what investigators called "fatal consequences."
The suit was filed under a U.S. statute that gives U.S. courts jurisdiction over violations of international laws regardless of where they occur. Similar legal complaints were filed earlier against companies including Coca-Cola, Fresh Del Monte Produce and Drummond for actions by paramilitaries at their foreign facilities.
They have met with mixed results in preliminary court proceedings. However, other kinds of international human rights suits filed under the same law, the Alien Tort Claims Act, sometimes have resulted in large judgments. Two months ago a Florida federal jury ordered a former Chilean death squad member to pay $4 million to a victim's estate.
