College Boycotts of Coke Products Based on Labor Issues

Gordon Smith over at the Conglomerate blog reports that an increasing number of universities are boycotting Coke products.  The list of colleges now includes Rutgers, NYU, and Michigan and there are now 10 colleges that have joined the ban according to the New York Times.

According to the Times article:

The university [of Michigan], which has 50,000 students on three campuses, on Thursday became the 10th college to stop selling  Coca-Cola products because of concerns arising from accusations about the company's treatment of workers in bottling plants in Colombia and environmental problems in India.

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Labor activists have said that Coca-Cola, through its Latin American bottlers, has been complicit in the deaths of eight union leaders and in continued harassment of unionized employees.

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Coke has denied all of the accusations [here is the official statement]. In April, the company announced the findings of a report by CSCC, a consulting firm in Los Angeles. The report, which was paid for by Coke, addressed current conditions, not the deaths, which occurred from 1989 to 2002. It found no violations or abuses of labor or human rights in Coke's bottling plants in Colombia.

Regardless of how this scenario plays out, it is great to see universities taking an active stand on labor and human rights issues.  Perhaps, this additional pressure on Coke will cause it to reconsider its current business actions in the international arena.

PS