NYU bans Coca-Cola products
By
LeiLani Dowell
New York
Published Dec 21, 2005 7:46 AM
New York University
announced on Dec. 12 that it has banned all Coca-Cola products. The ban is the
outcome of a two-year struggle by activists at NYU, the Campaign to Stop Killer
Coke (CSKC) and New York City Council Member Hiram Monserrate.
Their
drive was based on the refusal of Coke to agree to an independent third-party
investigation of alleged labor violations at its Colombian plants.
At
least eight murders of workers in Colombia’s Coca-Cola plants have
occurred since 1989 - seven union officials and one plant manager - and daily
union members at these plants face harassment, kidnapping, firings, and threats
against their lives and the lives of their families. However, Coca-Cola’s
crimes are not limited to Colombia - it faces allegations of human rights
violations in India, Turkey, Pakistan and Guatemala as well.
Coca-Cola
refused to submit to the investigation because it did not want the findings of
the probe to be admissible as evidence in a related lawsuit currently being
argued against the company’s affiliate in Miami. In addition, Coke would
not agree with NYU on the level of security that should be provided to employees
being interviewed in the process, according to the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
The Dec. 12 ban at the largest private university in
the United States is the eleventh ban of the product on campuses throughout the
country, and at least the twentieth worldwide. According to a CSKC press
release, students at over 70 colleges and universities in the U.S. have called
for an investigation into Coke’s labor rights violations in
Colombia.
The press conference was also attended by members of NYU’s
Graduate Student Organizing Committee, who have been striking since Nov. 9 after
the university refused to negotiate a second contract with the union. Speakers
and signs linked the two struggles, saying “GSOC in - Coke
out!”
Ray Rogers, director of CSKC, said, “This victory
becomes even sweeter when one recognizes that Coca-Cola board member Barry
Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of InterActiveCorp, is on the Board
of Trustees of New York University....Coke’s problems are only going to
mushroom at colleges, universities and high schools, while support continues to
grow among unions, human rights groups and others.’
In an e-mail
announcing the victory at NYU, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke quotes
SINALTRAINAL Vice President Juan Carlos Galvis in Colombia: “If we lose
the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and
then our lives.”
Coca-Cola products include Minute Maid fruit
juices, Dasani water, Sprite, Fanta, Nestea, Odwalla and Powerade. For more
information on the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, visit
www.killercoke.org.
The overwhelming majority of murders against union
members worldwide occurs in Colombia, where corrupt bosses work hand in hand
with the government and paramilitary forces to undermine the union
movement.
On Dec. 15, striking GSOC members once again joined forces with
the Colombia solidarity movement at NYU. Several hundred students and activists
protested the participation of right-wing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe
Velez, along with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, at a NYU panel
discussion entitled “New Political Policies for the Americas.”
The protest announcement reads in part: “NYU is giving the stage to
Kissinger and Uribe to lay out... policy that has and continues to open the way
for union-busting, corporate dominance and manipulation.... It is no surprise
that NYU gives a voice to such characters, because here at NYU the
administration follows the same policy of busting unions for corporate gain.
GSOC members will be protesting this event, letting NYU know that we will not
tolerate giving a platform to war criminals and anti-union politicians.”
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