The campaign to get Coca-Cola off of our campus has begun. For those who missed the teach-in or want more fact-based information on Coke's various human-rights abuses around the world, these are links to some good articles with information gathered by respected parties such as Human Rights Watch and the BBC.
Coca-Cola exploiting child labor in El Salvador's sugarcane plantations:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0610-01.htmCoca-Cola and the sale of toxic waste as "fertilizer" to farmers in India:
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2003/4703.htmlCoca-Cola and racial discrimination in the US:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/050100-108.htm(note: since the publishing of this article, Coca-Cola paid a $192 million settlement)
Coca-Cola's environmental destruction of communities in India:
http://www.indiaresource.org/Coca-Cola and the assasination of union leaders in Colombian bottling plants:
http://www.killercoke.org/
As a first step in the campaign to get Coke off campus, we are putting a student-referendum question on February's UGBC election asking the student body if they support replacing Coke in response to the company's human-rights record. Although the referendum is non-binding, this tactic has worked at other schools. Any group can get a referendum question by gathering the signatures of 1/8 of the student body, so we need to get around 1,100 signatures in the next few weeks.
If you want to get involved in the campaign you can sign-up to be on the listserve by sending an e-mail to majordomo@listserv.bc.edu and writing "subscribe unjustcola" (without quotation marks) in the body of the e-mail.
