Stop the War Makers. Hands Around the Lab. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Never Again!
Aug 10, 1:30pm - 3pm, Robert Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Road (at Vasco), Livermore

March for Immigrant Rights
Sep 20, 11am Assemble at Yerba Buena Gardens (Mission St. between 3rd & 4th), San Francisco; 12pm - March up Market St.; 1:30pm - Program & Festival at Civic Center.

Rally and March to Defeat Proposition 54
Sep 25, 12:00noon - Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley

Reportback from Palestine
Sep 27, 6:30pm - Redwood Gardens Community Room, 2951 Derby Street, Berkeley

End the Occupation! Bring the Troops Home Now!
Sep 28, Noon - Dolores Park, San Francisco - 12pm. Gather at Dolores Park, march to: 2pm - Rally at Civic Center

Forum: Defend Environmntal Justice, Defeat Prop. 54!
Sep 30, 7:00 PM - Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way, Berkeley.

In Celebration of the Free Speech Movement: The Berkeley ACLU Presents Larry Fly
Oct 6, 7:00 PM - Pauley Ballroom West, Berkeley campus

Stop the FTAA and School of the Americas
November 19-23, Miami and Colombus, GA.

Buy Nothing Day
November 28, Everywhere.

Coca-Cola or Coca-Killer?
by Jon Rodney, Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas

A HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS
Fifty new Coca-Cola vending machines will soon arrive at UC Berkeley, part of a lucrative deal signed last year between the university and the company. In addition to dispensing soft drinks, the machines will feature stylized images of the Campanile and the rest of the campus skyline. As students enjoy cold sodas and admire the pleasant landscape on the machine front, murder will very likely be the last thing on their minds.

But murder is an ever-present threat for workers dedicated to improving wages and conditions in Coke’s bottling facilities throughout the nation of Colombia. Over the last decade, paramilitaries have assassinated eight trade unionists in Coca-Cola’s Colombian plants. They have tortured hundreds more. (1) Managers at the plants allow – even encourage –these violations in order to destroy the workers' union, SINALTRAINAL. Adolfo de Jesús Munera, the most recent victim, was assassinated at the beginning of this semester, just nine days after the Colombian Supreme Court agreed to hear his lawsuit against Coke for intimidation. (2)

The effects of this terror campaign on workers’ rights have been nothing short of asphyxiating. The level of unionization in Colombian Coke bottling plants has dropped by two thirds in the last decade. SINALTRAINAL’s ability to effectively agitate for positive change – or even to defend basic rights – has been seriously weakened. In 1996, for example, a Coke subsidiary crushed workers efforts’ to fight the abolishment of medical insurance at the Bucaramanga plant by accusing union leaders of placing a bomb inside the factory. A Colombian prosecutor found the charges to be baseless only after the workers had languished in jail for six months. (3)

Coke pleads that it is not responsible for the murder and intimidation occurring inside its factories and those of its subsidiaries, but an international coalition of labor rights advocates is determined to hold the giant company accountable. In 2001, the United Steel Workers and the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit in US courts on behalf of several murdered workers.

THE UC CONNECTION
UC Berkeley’s 10-year contract with Coke gives the university considerable leverage with the world’s largest soft drink manufacturer. Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas (SOJA) and Colombia Support Network (CSN) are demanding that the University use this influence to make improvements in the Colombian situation. The groups launched their Coca-Cola responsibility campaign with a September movie night and speech by a Colombian union activist who knew some of the assassinated workers. Next, the groups brought their concerns to student government. The Graduate Assembly and the ASUC both passed resolutions guaranteeing that the bodies will send letters of concern to Coke and will help organize delegations to Coke’s bay area offices. Since the union itself has not called for a formal boycott of Coca-Cola, SOJA and CSN are not asking to sever Berkeley’s 10 year contract with Coke at this time.

The groups are planning visible and visually striking activities for the remainder of this semester: a giant, gun-toting coke can will soon appear on Sproul plaza. The can will help publicize a postcard-writing effort to Coke CEO Douglas Daft.

Recent victories in other national and international solidarity campaigns with labor struggles inspire SOJA and CSN members. Several years ago, members of SOJA and other organizations convinced the University to strengthen its code of conduct for trademark licensees, a code which may apply in this situation. Student-led pressure also helped bring workers victories at the Kukdong (now Mex-mode) factory in Atlixco de Puebla, México and at the New Era Cap Co. in Derby, New York.

GET INVOLVED:
Join Us: E-mail SOJA at <sojalives@yahoo.com> Write to Coke: Please write CEO Douglas Daft and tell him to stop allowing the murder of unionists. His address is 1 Coca-Cola Plaza, Atlanta, GA, 30313.
1. See www.cokewatch.org
2. Download the campus coke campaigns action packet
3. See www.counterpunch.org/coke0906.html
4. See Leech, Garry M. Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders. Colombia Report, July 23, 2001. Available at http://www.laborrights.org

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