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When I discuss the alleged crimes of the Coca-Cola corporation brought forth by citizens from India and Colombia with people, they are shocked. How, they seem to wonder, could murder, kidnapping, torture of union members in Colombia and the poisoning and drying up of groundwater that rural Indian citizens drink be connected to such an innocuous bottle of carbonated sugar water? The question is a good one.
First, the facts: Leaders from the SINALTRAINAL union in bottling plants with contracts with Coca-Cola have been murdered over the last decade by paramilitary forces. In addition, scores of rank-and-file union members and their families have been kidnapped and tortured. While it is unclear whether management from this plant is directly involved and tied to this violence (some workers argue vehemently that they are), it is clear that the factory management has done little to prevent this violence. Indeed, they have gained from this violence, as SINALTRAINAL has shrunk considerably since the killings began.
The Coca-Cola corporation has repeatedly refused to help with an independent investigation into these murders; the chairperson of Coke's board strangely argued at a recent stockholder meeting that an independent fact-finding investigation that would produce more evidence one way or another would interfere with the lawsuit Coke currently faces from Sinaltrail. Regarding the bottling factories that the union members work at, although Coke does do not own them, Coke could easily pressure plants' management to take action against the violence. Think of what would have happened if these factories had begun to spell "Coca-Cola" wrong on the labels of the bottles: Coke would say either fix the problem, or we will terminate our contract with you. Over the past decade, Coke has done no such thing to help prevent anti-union violence.
Because of these and other crimes alleged by groups in India, over 40 colleges and universities around the country (NYU, University of Michigan, Rutgers and Swarthmore, to name a few) have terminated or chosen not to renew their contracts with Coke. Five of these are from Illinois alone, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and DePaul. A national and worldwide movement made up of students and non-students alike is quickly gaining momentum to hold Coke accountable for their crimes in India, Colombia and elsewhere. As for us at Loyola, our contract with Coke ends during this academic year, making it the most convenient time to end our contract. So why have we not decided to end our contract with Coca-Cola? This is a great question, one I wish I had the answer to. Those in the administration whose job it is to decide this issue have politely blown off those students who have come to them urging them not to renew the contract. They have said that there is not enough student interest in the issue, which, besides being untrue, is a blatant skirting around their moral responsibility to help stop these injustices. In effect, they have said, yes, there are events transpiring that our involvement in is contrary to our professed ethics as a university, but there are not enough people telling us to take these ethics seriously to justify the slight inconvenience it would be to do so.
I call on the administration, then - both those who are the decision-makers on the issue and those whose positions would allow them to influence these decision-makers - to make this process more open and involving students and to make a decision that reflects the serious concern for social justice our university claims to have. If indeed social justice is not just for rock stars but for universities and university administrators, only one course of action can be taken: Choose not to renew Loyola's contract with the Coca-Cola corporation.
Micah Uetricht
Junior, sociology and women's studies
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