Editorial: “˜Coke!’ battle cry has flawed argument

Correction appended

This one seems destined to fizz out. A group of students under
the name Coke-Free Campus have been protesting against the
Coca-Cola Company for alleged human rights violations against its
workers in Colombia.

They hope to persuade the Associated Students UCLA to stop
selling Coke products until the alleged abuses are addressed.

Similar campaigns nationwide have gained support from Rutgers,
New York University and the University of Michigan, all of which
have banned the company’s products from their campuses.

Coca-Cola denies responsibility, attributing the deaths of their
workers to the hostile environment in Colombia, a country that has
been embroiled in a nationwide civil war. Some estimates put the
death toll of the warfare between paramilitary forces, the
government and other guerilla groups at 3,000 per year.

The students disagree. According to one, employees of the
company have sat by as Coca-Cola’s workers have been
“tortured, murdered, detained and kidnapped.”

The activists’ allegations are serious, but their
arguments are flawed. Coca-Cola is doing business in a country
where violence is the norm and all kinds of people ““ Coke
workers or not ““ are being killed. The students’
campaign also makes non-specific, sweeping demands for Coke to stop
the deaths of its workers.

Those involved in this campaign should take a hint from the Taco
Bell folks, whose “Boot the Bell” campaign ended with
the restaurant’s removal from campus in November 2004 ““
much to the chagrin of Chalupa lovers everywhere.

Those activists had specific goals: a raise in wages and
improvements in working conditions for Taco Bell’s tomato
suppliers. They also generated interest from other students through
postcard-writing campaigns, demonstrations on Bruin Walk and
general publicizing of their campaign.

In the end, Taco Bell agreed to the protesters’ demands,
pledged to change its practices, and came back to campus.

By contrast, the Coke-Free Campus group is asking for the
company to “incorporate humane practices into its treatment
of workers and change its policies in Colombia,” in one
activist’s words.

Progress toward both those goals is difficult to measure. If
Coke is mistreating workers, that’s one thing. But the
demands of the activists paint Coke as the prime instigator and
seem to ignore the political context of the country.

Aside from the flaws in the argument, one wonders why
Coke’s red logo has become a bull’s eye. We’d be
willing to bet there are other products on campus that are made in
sweatshops by underpaid workers under reprehensible labor
conditions.

So why Coke? The reason, as far as we can see, is “why
not?” And they’ll need a better reason than that if
they want to mobilize students.

Yes, student activism is an important part of college life and
of taking action to effect real change. (See the University of
California’s divestment from Sudanese companies as a
particularly recent and powerful example of student activism.)

At the same time, protests that haven’t been thought
through have the potential to make the student voice into a dull,
omnipresent hum rather than a pointed, productive push for
change.

In that spirit, the “activists who cried
“˜Coke!'” should rethink what’s really
behind the signs and shouts.

Because seriously, the rest of us don’t want a rum and
Pepsi.