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Coke loses contracts over human rights
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by Benjamin Jones
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Several universities across the country have responded to alleged human rights violations occurring at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Columbia and India by banning Coke products on campus.
The University of Michigan suspended its contract with Coke last month in response to the campaigning of UM's Coalition to Cut the Contract with Coca-Cola.
UM did not renew its $1.4 million contract with Coke because the corporation did not meet UM's demands for an independent investigation into the alleged violations and the development of a corrective plan.
"We want Coca-Cola to come out with a human rights declaration," said Deepti Reddy, UM student and CCCCC member. "That would be such a big step as far as addressing some of the problems that we've had with Coca-Cola, especially in Columbia [with] the union problems there."
In addition to UM, New York University has implemented an all-campus ban, while Rutgers University has switched from Coke products to Pepsi products.
Coke has been accused by several human rights organizations of union intimidation, the most serious of these being the murder of union leaders in Columbia, but Coke officials have refuted the allegations.
"I would stand our company's labor relations practices alongside any other company on the planet," said Ed Potter, director of Global Labor Relations for The Coca-Cola Company, in a press release Tuesday.
In a letter to UM, Coca-Cola defended its human rights record, stating that the company has put "concrete steps" in place to address specific accusations.
"Moving beyond accusations to constructive collaboration will result in tangible results and more progress for the people of Colombia and India," the company said in the letter.
Reddy believes the Coca-Cola contract suspension is not the final victory, but a means to an end.
"If we just end up banning the contract and Coca-Cola doesn't change anything that just is worse than a failure," Reddy said. "The only reason we have ever brought this up is so they will find a way to change their behavior."
NYU banned Coca-Cola in December because of Coca-Cola's failure to conduct an independent investigation of the charges in Columbia.
However, Coca-Cola hired an auditing firm to conduct an investigation into these charges. The company, called the Cal Safety Compliance Corporation, found no evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of Coca-Cola. This investigation was not satisfactory for NYU, as it was seen as not entirely independent.
"People were not satisfied with [the investigation]," Arthur Tannenbaum, chair of NYU's University Senate Public Affairs Committee, said. "[They] identified Cal-Safety as a 'corporate creature.'"
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, following the lead of these student organizations, made a statement Tuesday calling for the resolution of the disputes between student, labor and human rights groups and Coke.
"Our union brothers and sisters at Coca-Cola bottling facilities in Colombia have been threatened, kidnapped, tortured and murdered," James P. Hoffa, Teamsters General President, said in a press release. "It's long past time for Coca-Cola to negotiate a global human rights agreement that will protect the rights and safety of workers who produce, package and distribute Coca-Cola products."
Responding to this, Potter criticized the Teamsters for making false accusations.
"I am unaware of the Teamsters ever being involved in productive discussions addressing the issues facing Colombian workers. It is clear that the Teamsters know nothing about our operations in Colombia," said Potter. "These irresponsible accusations do a disservice to their own membership."
Anonymous (February 9, 2006 @ 6:36am):
COLOMBIA-Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Dyncorp and the others...
Congratulations for students' actions.
Since 2000, USAID gave 4 billion dollars to Colombia to set "Plan Patriota" and "Plan Colombia". Both are complete failures.
Plan Patriot's efforts are entirely directed at fighting the leftist insurgency groups, FARC and ELN, whereas the much more venal and drug-associated, the AUC rightwing paramilitaries are not be challenged.
Regarding " Plan Colombia", the price of cocaine on U.S. streets is at all-time lows, purity levels have not budged, and the number of addicts has risen. In November 2004, the Czar, John Walters, offered a defense of the US policy of fumigating hundreds of thousands of acres each year with herbicide sprayed from aircraft. "Round Up" (Monsanto) -- the mixture of the herbicide glyphosate with other chemicals to make it adhere to leaves -- "is the safest herbicide in use worlwilde," Walters said.
He added:
There are two reasons why people are opposed to its use. First, because they are ignorant about this fact. The other reason why they say that glyphosate is dangerous is because they support terrorism and narco-traffickers.
This means that organizations such as the United-Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, WWF, Center for International Policy (Washington), etc... are supporting narco-trafficking.
The cost for aerial fumigations is 150 million dollars each year, 100 million dollars goes to Dyncorp.
One pass of a plane is enough to kill all the crops, food crops included.
Fumigations are causing terrible damages on human health, biodiversity, the soils and the waters are contaminated for years, they bring poverty, forced displacement and starvation.
The situation in Colombia is inextricable:
Alvaro Uribe needs the AUC to be re-elected and he will be.
The AUC leaders would be safer regarding impunity and maybe avoid extradition, they know Uribe's directions for use and are extremely powerful. They are implicate in politics and economy, they have stolen 5 millions hectares of land from farmers and indigenous.
The AUC demobilization process should end next February. Everybody knows that the so-called law "Justice and Peace" is a very bad farce. Today some demobilized AUC leaders are still very active.
I never heard about the extradition of AUC top leaders, only FARC leaders. The US government says that in 2006, he is going to be firm about the extradition of ten AUC top leaders wanted for years.
If Alvaro Uribe agrees for one real extradition, politically he is a dead man.
We know that sometimes, extraditions are just a "gentlemen's agreement", if I can say so...
Georges W. Bush needs Alvaro Uribe to remain president. Uribe is a puppet in his hands and his best ally in Latin-America, 80% of USAID is going to military purpose, the official army and the AUC are very often acting together and US embassy officials have meetings with some AUC leaders for a long time.
Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime-minister made a campaign inside the European Union to help Alvaro Uribe paying salaries to the demobilized paramilitaries, Zapatero's goal was to sell planes to the Colombian army, he succeeded.
The French government is discussing with the FARC, they want the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt.
The fact that the AUC and the FARC are on the list of terrorist organizations doesn't seem to be a problem.
Those countries, and others, are pretending to help Colombia, most of them are just looking at their own interests.
This is to say that Coca-Cola is not the only one involved with those terrorist groups.
But, there is no excuse to help them to commit more crimes.
Francoise Callier
kogis@wanadoo.fr
Anonymous (February 13, 2006 @ 5:52am):
felicito a las organizaciones imternacionales por este magniigfico trabajo que estan haciendo para defender la vida de los trabajadores al serviicio de la multinacional cocacola en colombia y de las comunidades en la india que tambien son atropelladas por cocacola, es una empresa muy mentirosa y quiere hacer creer que respetan los derechos humanos pero no es asi solo les importa explotar al genero humanos y los recursos natuales por eso es importante que ustedes continuen presionando y exigiendo a cocacola que de una vez por todas termine con los abusos contra la humanidad . gracias y felicitaciones a todos.
