SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 14, 2004--DaimlerChrysler, the manufacturer of Chrysler and Mercedes Benz automobiles, has been sued for violating the human rights of trade unionists during the so-called "Dirty War" in Argentina, the law firm Chavez & Gertler announced today.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal Court in San Francisco under the Alien Tort Claims Act, seeks to hold DaimlerChrysler responsible for the disappearance and presumed murder of 9 workers and the detention and torture of 8 others. The workers were union activists at the Mercedes Benz Argentina auto manufacturing plant in Gonzalez-Catan, a suburb of Buenos Aires, when the Argentine military seized power in 1976 and launched the Dirty War.

The plaintiffs in the case -- the families of the disappeared and the surviving victims of torture and forced exile -- say that officials at the Mercedes Benz

plant worked closely with, aided and abetted security officials who carried out these crimes during the height of the Dirty War in which approximately 30,000 people were "disappeared" by Argentina's military dictatorship. Over half of the disappeared were blue-collar workers, most of whom belonged to trade unions.

The suit contends that officials of Mercedes Benz Argentina, now a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler, gave the names and addresses of workers they deemed "subversive" to state security forces at a time when it was well-known that "subversives" would be detained, tortured and disappeared. In some cases, Mercedes officials at the Gonzalez-Catan plant brought security forces into the plant and assisted them in kidnapping workers, now presumed dead, particularly those who led the independent union elected by the workers at the plant.

According to Mark A. Chavez, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit, a recently declassified State Department cable confirms that the management of large corporations in Argentina collaborated with state security forces in order to rid the corporations of labor agitators. Chavez also observed that "Mercedes Benz Argentina signed an agreement, approved by the Labor Ministry, in which it expressly agreed to set aside 1% of the company's sales for the 'eradication of negative elements' among its employees." "They wanted to get rid of the union leaders and branding them as subversives was an effective way to do it," said Chavez. As an example of the close ties between Mercedes Benz Argentina and the security forces, the complaint alleges that one of the police officials involved in torturing the workers was subsequently hired as Chief of Security by the company.

Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Kim E. Card, stated that, "DaimlerChrysler has admitted that Mercedes Benz Argentina officials released information to state security forces which had forseeably 'fatal consequences' for one of the workers."

Mercedes Benz Argentina was Mercedes' first foreign venture outside of Germany. It founded the Gonzalez-Catan plant in 1951. Its most famous employee was the Nazi leader and the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, who came to Argentina under the assumed name Ricardo Clement. Eichmann worked in Mercedez Benz as an electrians "expert" until he was finally captured by Israeli security forces in 1960.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are represented by a team of lawyers, including Chavez & Gertler LLP, a class action firm based in Mill Valley, California, Terry Collingsworth and the Washington, D.C. based International Labor Rights Fund, a leading human rights advocacy organization, and Dan Kovalik, a labor rights attorney based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

For further information contact: Mark A. Chavez Kim E. Card Chavez & Gertler LLP 42 Miller Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 Phone: (415) 381-5599 Fax: (415) 381-5572 Email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Website: www.chavezgertler.com After hours: (415) 389-1730