U. of Michigan kicks Coke out.

[Thom Little]

The University of Michigan is the latest school to kick Coca-Cola off campus because of concerns about the company's labor practices in Colombia.

Labor activists for several years have been pressuring universities to stop selling Coke. Michigan, which has more than 50,000 students on its three campuses, is the activists' largest victory to date. New York University recently announced a ban as well.

At least nine schools have stopped selling Coke products, citing Colombia as one of the reasons.

The anti-Coke people claim that the company was complicit in violence against union workers in Colombia. Coke has vigorously denied those charges.

The activists also have accused Coke of bad water quality and water usage practices in India. Again, Coke denies any wrongdoing.



http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/coke/1205/30bizcoke.html

[Lefty48197]

1. Kick Pepsi out too.

Viva Faygo!

On a serious note, if the charges are true, then this is a very good step.

[meganmonkey]

12. It's all about the Faygo, baby!!

:9

[amandabeech]

34. And Squirt and Vernor's!

Faygo needs to bring back the diet chocolate pop, too.

GO BLUE! It's always in the vanguard!

[ny_liberal]

2. so what do they drink now?

water? lol

[msongs]

3. soda = liquid candy. better not to drink ANY brand nt

[Jamison]

13. Fizzy drinks without HFCS are OK I suppose.

All the big soda makers (Coke & Pepsi) use high-fructose corn syrup which is notorious for causing obesity.

The school could replace coke with maybe a local soda brewer's drinks that use real sugar instead of HFCS. It would be a win-win for being a little of a healthier alternative, and for supporting a local industry & not a predatory big corporation.

I sometimes drink a cream soda brewed by a local brewer here & they use real sugarcane instead of HFCS. It just tastes better.

[fujiyama]

14. The nice thing is that Ann Arbor

has plenty of small shops and cafes, some of which offer great Italian sodas and other similar stuff.

I actually prefer the taste of Coke to Pepsi, but I think this is a great move, both ethically/morally, and hey, healthwise it can't hurt to get a bunch of college aged people to eat and drink healthier!

[Rigby Reardon]

4. Labor practices in Colombia?

Sorry, I can't choke down a Pepsi. Sticking with Coke

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Yeah, I understand perfectly.

It involves some brown-skinned folks in some lowlife backwater country that we can't be bothered to identify on a map, so what's the difference?

:sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm::sarcasm:

[rooboy]

7. Here's hoping your loyalty to Coke will get you a job...

in one of their Latin American factories.

[Binka]

11. Wow How Utterly NON Progressive Of You

Make a wrong turn friend?

[saigon68]

15. nice first post

[Ian David]

19. Yes, why should YOU care about mass-murders in Colombia

Welcome to DU and enjoy your stay.

[rman]

23. don't expect anyone to care about *your* labor conditions.

by all means continue to support corporations that exploit labor everywhere (except in the board room of course).

[Lochloosa]

26. How hard was it to wait 18 days to make that post?

[TheWatcher]

28. It took him 18 days to be able to mentally string together the words

Think how long it would take him to realize he posted something stupid.

[Lochloosa]

30. I just had to come back and see if he has learned to use the "reply"

button yet. Guess not.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

27. Oh, YOU'RE gonna last a long time here.

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[TheWatcher]

29. You'll choke on your own stupidity long before you choke on the Pepsi.

Weclome to DU.

Hopefully you won't be here long.

[forintegrity]

5. Go Blue!

Way to let 'em know!

[ticapnews]

8. Ah yes, campus activism...

I remember at my university several years ago there was a move to bring a Taco Bell on campus. There were protests and official action taken by several groups because Taco Bell was owned by Pepsi, who was doing evil things somewhere in the world. The protests were successful and the deal with Taco Bell was scrapped.

Later that year a plan was announced to bring a pizza joint onto the campus. Oddly enough, no one protested. No groups opposed the move. The next fall Pizza Hut moved into its new home in the student union. That's right, the same Pizza Hut owned by Pepsi, who was apparently no longer doing evil things anywhere in the world.

But you can't expect college kids to sacrifice cheap pizza for stupid moral issues. Cheap Mexican food, on the other hand...

[depakid]

10. We nailed 'em too!

Campus Taco Bell no more
Mexican fast-food staple will likely leave campus by July
Christian Gaston
January 27, 2005

Student activists who have led a boycott of PSU's Taco Bell station made headway this week when university officials announced that none of the firms competing to run PSU dining services propose to include Taco Bell in next year's offerings. :toast:

http://www.dailyvanguard.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/27/41f8b4c49da62

And, no Pizza hut! (though of course- you can still get pizza- no pizza would be blasphemy).

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

31. What no taco's??

Doesn't Pepsi own TacoBell?

[depakid]

33. Plenty of fresh, healthy tacos at the taqueria stands

Thai, Indian & Middle Eastern, around campus, too.

But NO Taco Bell. :puke:

[Judi Lynn]

9. Articles were out last week about a university in Canada, and one

in New York which are removing Coke from their campuses. It's sounding better and better. News about Coca Cola's Colombia actions and it's destruction of water supplies for entire towns in India always gets suppressed here, and it has taken forever to finally start becoming heard.

Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads
to Target Union Leaders

by Garry M. Leech, Colombia Report

July 23, 2001

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Florida accuses the Coca-Cola Company, its Colombian subsidiary and business affiliates of using paramilitary death squads to murder, torture, kidnap and threaten union leaders at the multinational soft drink manufacturer's Colombian bottling plants. The suit was filed on July 20 by the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian union that represents workers at Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants; the estate of a murdered union leader; and five other unionists who worked for Coca-Cola and were threatened, kidnapped or tortured by paramilitaries.
Colombia has long been the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists with almost 4,000 murdered in the past 15 years. Last year saw 128 labor leaders assassinated. Most of the killings have been attributed to right-wing paramilitaries belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who view union organizers as subversives and, therefore, "legitimate" targets in their dirty war against Colombia's guerrilla insurgents. Three out of every five trade unionists killed in the world are Colombian. The most recent killing of a union leader at one of Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants was June 21 when Oscar Dario Soto Polo was gunned
down.

Needless to say, companies in Colombia benefit from the reduced effectiveness of union organizing that results from the intimidation of workers by paramilitaries. But the complaint filed against Coca-Cola last week claims that the company does more than just benefit from paramilitary violence: it claims the company orchestrates it.
(snip)

Among the suit's many claims is a 1996 incident in which Ariosto Milan Mosquera, plant manager at Bebidas y Alimentos' bottling facility in Carepa, Colombia, made public pronouncements that "he had given an order to the paramilitaries to carry out the task of destroying the union." Union members claim that Mosquera often socialized with paramilitary fighters and even provided them with Coca-Cola products for their fiestas. Shortly after Mosquera's pronouncement, local members of SINALTRAINAL began receiving threats from the paramilitaries.

On September 27, 1996, SINALTRAINAL sent a letter to the Colombian headquarters of both Bebidas y Alimentos and Coca-Cola Colombia informing them of Mosquera's threats against the union and requesting that they intervene to prevent further human rights abuses against employees and union leaders.

Two and a half months later, on the morning of December 5, 1996, Bebidas y Alimentos employee and local SINALTRAINAL executive board member Isidro Segundo Gil was killed by paramilitaries inside the Carepa bottling plant. The remaining union board members were also threatened with death if they did not leave town. And then, on December 7, the paramilitaries entered the plant and told employees they had three choices: resign from the union, leave Carepa, or be killed. The suit claims the workers were then led into the manager's office to sign union
resignation forms prepared by the company. The union had been successfully busted.
(snip/...)

http://www.laborrights.org/press/coke072301.htm





New York University Bans Killer Coke
On December 8, 2005, New York University joined the growing list of universities worldwide to kick Coca-Cola off campus. The NYU students who led the campaign were part of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) effort to raise awareness about the human rights violations occurring in Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia and Turkey, among other places. The USAS effort is part of a larger global campaign to Stop Killer Coke. For more information on the campaign, see www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org and www.killercoke.org.

In Colombia, trade union leaders from SINALTRAINAL, the national union of food and beverage workers, have been murdered and tortured by paramilitary death squads brought in by local Coca-Cola bottling plant managers to suppress with violence the workers’ organizing efforts. In Turkey, the local Coca-Cola managers fired 110 Coca-Cola transport workers when they joined a union. When the workers peacefully gathered with their families at the Coca-Cola headquarters in Istanbul, Coca-Cola unleashed about 1,000 of the Turkish riot police, the Çevik Kuvvet , on the crowd. About 90 people, including women and children, were hospitalized after they were brutally beaten.
(snip/...)

http://www.laborrights.org/projects/corporate/coke/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Democrats are well known for their deep involvement in human rights work, and especially active in creating and maintaining the rights of workers through unions.

Scoffing at situations like this doesn't seem particularly Democratic. It's far more natural coming from an idiot Republican.

Thanks to Thom Little for posting this info.

[Judi Lynn]

16. The reasons people are protesting Coca Cola concern its violence

against the workers in poor countries, rather than its sugary qualities.

More for people who haven't taken time to get acquainted with the details:

July 26, 2004

Coca-Cola in Colombia: Increased Profits, Downsized Workforce

by Lesley Gill



~snip~
Over half of the jobless laborers are union leaders. Some of them may now lose the protection provided by a state-sponsored program for threatened unionists and become more exposed to paramilitary violence. The company’s refusal to accommodate them and its pressure tactics against 500 employees who were forced to take early retirement are part of an ongoing campaign to undermine and eliminate the union, say Sinaltrainal leaders. To protest Coca-Cola’s labor practices and those of its bottlers, 30 unionists staged a 12-day hunger strike last March, and Sinaltrainal is currently considering new protests against the company.

The labor conflict comes at a time when the multinational is posting record profits. Its worldwide operations earned $1.3 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2004, the first time that quarterly earnings exceeded one billion dollars. These revenues represent a 35 percent increase over last year.

In addition to job loss and company intransigence, the March strike highlights a continuing pattern of violence against labor leaders. As hunger strikers pressured Coca-Cola in Cartagena, Barranquilla, Cúcuta, Calí, Medellín, Barrancabermeja, and Bucaramanga, paramilitaries in the town of Palmira threatened workers with death if they did not leave the city within 90 days. Nine Coca-Cola workers have been murdered since the late 1980s. Sixty-seven others have been threatened, kidnapped and forcibly displaced, and family members are often targeted in order to pressure labor leaders into renouncing union activities.

Sinaltrainal accuses Coca-Cola and two of its bottlers with failing to protect workers and using right-wing paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to murder and terrorize them. Shortly after FEMSA announced the plant closings last year, armed men kidnapped the 15-year-old son of labor leader Limberto Carranza in Barranquilla as the young man rode his bicycle home from school. The kidnappers beat and tortured him and stated that his father was on a list of people whom they planned to murder. During the boy’s ordeal, his father received a telephone call in which an individual said, “Unionist son-of-a-bitch, we are going to kill you ... and if we can’t kill you, we will kill your family.”

Sinaltrainal has correlated the instances of most intense violence against workers with specific periods of labor conflict, such as strikes, contract negotiation and protests. Coca-Cola is in fact notorious for its anti-union tactics. Guatemalan workers only managed to save their union by occupying a factory in Guatemala City for a year when the country was in the midst of a bloody civil war. Like other multinational corporations, Coke benefits from the reduced effectiveness of trade unions that arises from the intimidation of workers. This is because weak unions pose less resistance to job cuts, lowered wages, reduced benefits and “flexible” contracts, and threats, selective assassinations and false accusations serve as tools of labor management. They also contribute to a climate of anti-unionism in which Sinaltrainal is associated with guerrilla insurgencies, with members unable to exercise their rights to free association.
(snip/...)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia190.htm

[DancingBear]

17. OK - here's a first

An OSU alum congratulating Michigan!

Nicely done - let's hope others follow suit.

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. woot!

Well done, Wolverines!

Of course, activism is just a whiney, ineffectual pretention of youth, so some would have you believe. It never actually works to change the world, some people say. Coke couldn't possibly feel pressured to actually change their practices, these people will tell you, and those kids will grow out of it, they'll say. :rofl:

[mcscajun]

21. Yup...never works. NOT. Coke's feeling the heat.

from the NYT story:

A Coke spokeswoman, Kari Bjorhus, said yesterday in a statement that the company hoped the Michigan decision was temporary.

She said Coca-Cola was looking at ways to conduct an independent third-party study of the situation in Colombia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/31/business/31coke.html

Uh-huh. And they were going to do that anyway before all the ruckus. NOT.

[donsu]

20. coke machines should be taken out of public schools too

for politics and health reasons

[RedSock]

22. *'s reaction

somebody better explain this to * -- he's liable to declare war on those coke-hating terrorists!

or he'll just say "more for me"


:dunce:

[sleipnir]

24. NYU is planning to Kick Out Coke, too. If they don't agree to an investig

Unless Coke agrees to an independent investigation of their South American labor practices, all of their products (including waters and juices) will be removed from the University. The ultimatum I believe comes due in the next two months.

If you really support the no-Coke, DON'T BUY ODWALLA, IT'S A PURE COKE BRAND!!!

It's not really that healthy and the money goes into the same murder fund, as if you bought a nice 20 oz. Diet Coke.

[seg4527]

25. We're planning on doing the same thing at the U of Minn ~ Twin Cities

Second largest campus in the nation, it should send coke a signal.

[Judi Lynn]

32. Facing defeat, Coca-Cola tries to dictate terms in India

Facing defeat, Coca-Cola tries to dictate terms in India

San Francisco, January 5, 2006: In a bold move, the Coca-Cola company in India has demanded that either they be allowed to re-open the closed factory in Plachimada immediately or they be allowed to shift the factory to a nearby industrial estate.
(snip)

“There is no easy way out for Coca-Cola because it has caused immense damage to both the people and the environment, and impacts will be felt for a long time. The lesson learnt from Plachimada is that we cannot allow such negligent practices anywhere,” said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an international campaigning organization.
(snip)

In addition to demanding the permanent shut down of the bottling plant, the community led struggle in Plachimada has also demanded:

• Compensation for affected community members who have lost their livelihoods as a result of the water shortages and pollution
  
• Remediation of the area until the groundwater achieves the quality and quantity prior to the establishment of the factory
  
• Admit long term liability for the health impacts to the community as a result of the pollution
  
• Initiation of criminal proceedings against the Coca-Cola company for destruction of lives, livelihoods and environment
  
• Introduction of appropriate government rules and regulations that ensure that such abuses do not happen again
  
• Dropping of all criminal charges filed against activists engaged in the campaign
  
• Setting up of funds to ensure retraining and relocation of workers currently working in the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Plachimada, including contract workers
  (snip/...)

http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/125200/1/1893

[One_Life_To_Give]

35. Ah, to be in college again

This could save some cash. Coke doesn't come in Kegs.

[baby_mouse]

36. Good nt.