By Nathan Solinsky
Let's imagine for a moment that you work at a union plant for a major U.S.
corporation. You go to work in the morning and a group of armed thugs shows
up at the gates to your plant. They gun down, in cold blood, a leader of
your union, and an hour later kidnap another from his own home. That night,
your union office is torched and everything inside is burned.
The next day you brave going to work again, and find an armed group
greeting you with a prepared resignation form. They say you have until 4
p.m. to resign from your union or die. What would you do? Can you even
imagine such a situation?
This is exactly what workers say happened at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in
Colombia Dec. 4, 1996. The union leader murdered was Isidro Segundo Gil, and
his family is now in hiding. The union at the Carepa bottling plant was
crushed by this violence, and the workers, fearing for their lives, did
resign. A paramilitary group set up camp outside their plant for two months
afterwards to make sure no union returned.
No one has been brought to justice for these crimes. Gil's union,
Sinaltrainal, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and the United
Steelworkers of America filed a lawsuit in Miami in July, 2001, against
Coca-Cola, Panamerican Beverages (the largest soft-drink bottler in Latin
America) and Bebidas y Alimentos (a bottler owned by Richard Kirby of Key
Biscayne, Fla., which operates the plant in which Gil was killed. Updates on
the lawsuit can be found at http://www.killercoke.org.
What occurred those few days was not an isolated incident. In 1989, Avelino
Chicanoy, a union leader at the Pasto Coca-Cola plant was murdered. At the
Carepa Coca-Cola plant, three other union leaders in addition to Gil have
been killed. Jose Elaseasar MancoDavid was murdered April 8, 1994. Luis
Enrique Giraldo Arango was murdered April 20, 1994. Luis Enrique Gomez
Garado was assassinated April 23, 1995. Jose Librado Herrera Osorio, a
manger sympathetic to unions, was murdered Dec. 26, 1996. In addition, at
the Monteria Coca-Cola plant, union leader Oscar Dario Soto Polo was
murdered June 21,2001. At the Baranquilla Coca-Cola plant, union leader
Adolfo de Jesus Munera Lopez was killed Aug. 31, 2002.
On Aug. 22, 2003, Juan Carlos Galvis, a plaintiff in the ILRF lawsuit and
worker at the Barrancabermeja Coca-Cola bottling plant, barely escaped
assassination. On Sept. 10, 2003, the 15-year-old son of a Barrenquilla
union leader was pulled off of his bicycle by masked men and thrown into a
truck. In the truck, he was interrogated for four hours about his father.
His father received a call at home saying "Unionist son of a bitch; we are
going to break you. And if you won't break, we will attack your home."
Luckily, the man's son was found by a stranger and taken to police.
The reign of terror facing those who work at Coca-Cola's bottling plants is
only one example of the many crimes Coke commits in the name of profit.
Coca-Cola has also caused widespread environmental destruction in India,
according to the India Resource Center (http://www.indiaresource.org).
Coca-Cola's bottling plants have caused severe water shortages for many
subsistence farmers as the plants require massive amounts of water to
operate. Studies by the Central Ground Water Board in India "have confirmed
the significant depletion of the water table," according to the center.
The India Resource Center also details Coca-Cola's free discharge of
bottling-plant waste into the local groundwater, causing public health
authorities to post signs at many wells warning that the water is unfit for
human consumption.
In the areas of Plachimada and Mehdiganj, Coca-Cola's bottling-plant waste
was being sold as fertilizer to local farmers. The India Resource Center
explains, "Tests conducted by the BBC found cadmium and lead in the waste,
effectively making the waste toxic waste. Coca-Cola stopped the practice of
distributing its toxic waste only when ordered to do so by the state
government."
Some eventually had the idea of testing the products Coke was selling in
India. What was found is detailed by the India Resource Center on its Web
site:
"Tests conducted by a variety of agencies, including the government of
India, confirmed that Coca-Cola products contained high levels of
pesticides, and as a result, the Parliament of India has banned the sale of
Coca-Cola in its cafeteria. However, Coca-Cola not only continues to sell
drinks laced with poisons in India (that could never be sold in the U.S. and
E.U.), it is also introducing new products in the Indian market. And as if
selling drinks with DDT and other pesticides to Indians was not enough, one
of Coca-Cola's latest bottling facilities to open in India, in Ballia, is
located in an area with a severe contamination of arsenic in its
groundwater."
As a result, on Nov. 3, the Rajasthan High Court ordered Coke and Pepsi to
label their products with not only ingredients, but also the pesticide
content. Further court action is currently ongoing to set up an
investigating committee to look into the health hazards of Coke products in
India. In response, Coke told the Financial Express, "our products
manufactured in India are world class and safe."
Kent State
A highlight of the university's contract with Coca Cola.
In 2002 the Kent State procurement department signed a contract so that
only Coca-Cola products could be "sold, dispensed, or served" on campus.
Unbelievably, Kent State could not knowingly allow a student organization to
serve Pepsi at a meting. Furthermore, by contract, Kent State has agreed to
use “reasonable, good faith efforts to maximize the sale and distribution”
of Coca-Cola on campus.
According Kent States Web site,
(http://www.kent.edu/Administration/strateg_init/MissionStatement.cfm), the
mission of our university is to "prepare students for responsible
citizenship and productive careers, broaden intellectual perspectives and
foster ethical and humanitarian values." Apparently, the Web site has not
been updated to include "and maximize the sale and distribution of
Coca-Cola."
Additionally, Kent State has granted Coca-Cola a license to use "University
Marks throughout the United States – on a royalty free basis – for the
purposes of promoting Company [Coca-Cola] beverages." Coca-Cola is the
official beverage "sponsor" of Kent State University. The beverage company
pays the university handsomely for this exclusive agreement.
In the past, the university has been criticized for its ties to Coca-Cola
under a previous contract. At the time, Coca-Cola was actively engaging in
promotions with and was seen by some as a willing corporate partner to the
dreaded dictatorship that ruled Nigeria for many years. Human-rights groups
on campus suggested that when the contract was up for renewal, a committee
be formed to address these criticisms and decide if Kent State really wanted
to associate itself with Coca-Cola. No such committee was formed, however,
and the contract was renewed without discussion of Coca-Cola's human rights
or environmental records.
According to discussions this author had with John Flasco, procurement
department director, some students were chosen to help with the current
Coca-Cola contract, but they apparently showed little interest or simply did
not attend meetings. It's not known currently who served on this committee,
or why they were chosen and what background they had to address the many
concerns about Coca-Cola.
Justice or Boycott?
Many schools around the world and in the United States are active in the
campaign to hold Coca-Cola responsible for its actions. Until Coke makes
reparations, there is a growing boycott movement against the company.
Recently, the president of Oberlin College issued a statement saying, "I am
quite dismayed that the Coca-Cola Corporation has refused to cooperate with
any independent investigation of its subsidiaries in Colombia. I have
reviewed your comprehensive set of findings and recommendations and have
decided to end the sale of Coca-Cola products on Oberlin's campus."
From the University of California Santa Cruz Student Union Assembly passing
a resolution to investigate Coke's crimes, to the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers voting to remove Coke from its lunch rooms, people are choosing not
to refresh themselves with a drink born of suffering. The Communication
Workers of America, representing some 700,000 members, voted to support a
boycott against SunTrust Banks, a bank that shares many of the same
executives and is heavily intertwined with Coca-Cola. The American Postal
Workers Union (APWU), with 270,000 members, passed a resolution at its
national convention stating, "the national American Postal Workers Union
requests that the United States Postal Service remove all Coca-Cola products
from all postal facilities…"
Examples abound of people of conscience taking a stand against Coca-Cola's
exploitation and crimes. Kent State is on the list of dozens of colleges
joining in the fight against Coca-Cola. Until there is justice for the
people of Colombia and India, there will be an active and aggressive boycott
of all Coke products at Kent State. Learn more about Coke and the boycott at
http://www.personal.kent.edu/~nsolinsk.