Refreshing Pauses: Coca-Cola and Human Rights in Guatemala

While the crisis in Central America is receiving attention from scholars in a variety of disciplines, few works have focused on the role of nongovernment organizations in reducing levels of violence in that region. This remarkable case study examines the resilient struggle by workers at the Guatemala Coca-Cola bottling plant from 1976-1986, and documents why this union was able to survive within a repressed government to become a key factor in stimulating a larger independent labor movement in the country. Scholars of political sociology, labor studies, and the governments and politics of Central America will do well to read this volume.