Students at Plymouth State University may have one more reason to choose Pepsi products over Coca-Cola, taste not being a factor. On Tuesday, April 10, the PSU Nicaragua club sponsored a talk by Ray Rogers, a critically acclaimed union activist who is spreading the word to stop “Killer Coke.”
The crusade against the soft drink giant started because of alleged crimes against humanity that a Coca-Cola bottling plant based in Columbia committed against its union workers.
The case of Isidro Segundo Gil, an employee at Carepa, the Colombian bottling plant, is one example that Roger’s uses in describing Coca-Cola’s crimes. Gil, who was an executive member of the Columbian union Sinaltrainal, was killed at Carepa by paramilitary forces.
Gil’s assassination, based on eyewitness accounts, was the centerpiece of a lawsuit filed 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, FL, which operates the plant in which Gil was killed.) The lawsuit states that the Coke bottlers, “Contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders.”
The law suit was dropped and no charges were ever filed against Gil’s killers or those who allegedly killed at least seven other Coca-Cola unionists in an effort to squash unionization in the bottling plant. Coca-Cola denies all human rights violations and allegations.
“Over the past several decades, Colombia has experienced much internal conflict, which affects trade union leaders in many industries and other people from all walks of life. Despite the volatile environment, the Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers have maintained operations and have worked to provide safe, stable economic opportunities for the people of Colombia.
In a country where violence against union members has deterred all but four percent of workers from unionizing, 31 percent of Coca-Cola bottler employees belong to unions. Coca-Cola bottlers enjoy extensive, normal relations with multiple unions in Colombia and currently have collective bargaining agreements in place covering wages, benefits and working conditions. On average, wages for Coca-Cola workers are two to three times higher than the minimum wage, ” said an e-mail from Coca-Cola.
“What Coca-Cola doesn’t tell you is that 90-95 percent of the 8,500 Coca-Cola employees in Columbia are subcontracted, unrecognized, flexible employees,” Rogers said. “These employees do not receive benefits and are not employed full time. Of the percentage of employees that are actually recognized, 31 percent are union members. They don’t tell the whole story.”
Rogers screened a video, read first hand accounts and displayed research of the Coca-Cola company’s numerous alleged crimes, saying that, “When people think about the Coca-Cola Company, when they see Coca-Cola product and merchandise, they should think about a company that inflicts great hardship; that cares for profit more than people.”
Coca-Cola’s supposed crimes aren’t limited to Columbia. They have also been accused of contaminating numerous water sources in India, Mexico and Ghana, of continuing to operate bottling and manufacturing plants in Darfur, Sudan, opting to pay fines for violating U.S. sanctions on exports and imports in the country instead of closing down their plants, and exploiting child labor in El Salvador by buying syrup from sugar cane fields who all but enslave child workers.
Rogers said, “Coca-Cola is a corporate system full of lies, deception, immorality, corruption and widespread labor, human rights and environmental abuses. No community that places ethical concerns ahead of monetary gains and greedy corporations should be identified with Coca-Cola, nor serve as a marketplace for its sales and advertising.”
Rogers challenged the students at PSU to “do something about Coca-Cola’s corruption and opt to not sell Coke products or merchandise on the Plymouth State University campus.” Many colleges and universities across the nation have joined the campaign to stop “Killer Coke” and have become “Coke free” campuses including NYU, Hofstra University, University of Michigan and Rutgers University among others.
“We hope the PSU community joins in the campaign to force Coca-Cola to clean up its act,” said Rogers.
For more information about the Killer Coke campaign, visit killercoke.org or e-mail StopKillerCoke@aol.com