Recently, the Student Government Association passed a resolution that ended their support of the Coca Cola boycott, and pledged to “actively seek to have the Fair Business Practices Committee, the Board of Trustees, and the University extend its existing contract…” The original proposed resolution included outlandish statements that questioned the validity of SINALTRAINAL, the Colombian union that has been visited by DePaul students and whose former member Luis Adolfo Cardonas has visited DePaul on nine different occasions to speak about why he is a refugee and why he had to leave his homeland with his family at threat of death. The resolution also alleged that DePaul’s Vincentian values obligate us to presume corporate innocence, and that students should be compelled to protect the “DePaul brand name.” This language was pared down, and the final resolution that was passed rejected the Coca Cola boycott based on Coca Cola’s recent move to have an investigation done by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and that the campaign has “failed to attract widespread agreement on campus.”
Although many members of SGA have accepted the ILO investigation at face value, it is not truly independent. As had been reiterated in previous SGA meetings, Coca Cola’s recently-hired Director of Global Labor Relations, Ed Potter, has a very powerful position in the ILO; he has been the U.S. employer representative for the last 15 years. The ILO has been requested for years to create a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the situation of trade union leaders in Colombia; it refused to until Ed Potter’s recent involvement. Furthermore, regardless of the trustworthiness of the ILO in this matter, DePaul is a member of the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a labor rights organization made up of over 150 colleges and universities. If DePaul chooses to accept Coca Cola’s unwillingness to be inspected by the WRC, it should at least seek the WRC’s approval before accepting the ILO’s work. Dan Kovalik, SINALTRAINAL’s lawyer, has pointed out that the ILO may not even conduct an investigation, but an assessment, which would make recommendations for future practices but would not investigate the past labor conditions at the Colombian bottling plant, which is what students have demanded. The ILO has yet to release any documentation outlining the scope or methodologies of the “investigation,” nor has it addressed who will be funding it. The possibility of Coca Cola funding its own investigation would completely eliminate any suggestion of independence.
As for SGA’s belief that the Coca Cola boycott has not attracted support among the greater student body, it is obviously ignoring its previous resolution that lists the widespread support from various student organizations as impetus for supporting the boycott. Over 40 student groups have endorsed the boycott or support it by using the Activist Student Union’s “Anti-Coke Fund” to provide alternative beverages for their meetings and events. Almost every week, organizations request the ASU to bring them drinks, and ASU has received many letters thanking them for that service. Furthermore, the campaign is still being joined by student groups. Just last week, only days before the SGA abandoned the campaign, the Pakistani Student Organization used the Anti-Coke fund drinks at their event. In addition, the ASU has distributed over 1,000 anti-Coke buttons which are proudly worn by supporters. The assertion that the Coca Cola boycott does not have widespread campus support is nothing but a lie.
At the SGA meeting on April 23, this new resolution was presented in the agenda, accompanied by new information from the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, as well as from the Coca Cola Company itself, and other information was distributed in the meeting detailing criticisms of the ILO by SINALTRAINAL’S lawyer and about the IUF, a “yellow union” created by Coca Cola in order to generate support for the ILO investigation. Typically, resolutions are submitted in SGA and they are voted on in the next general body meeting, but this time there was a break with this and the resolution was railroaded in for a vote. Worse, this was done after the annual constitutional session which lasted so long that some senators had to leave before this resolution was put forth for debate. Unfortunately, senate members refused to allow sufficient time to peruse these documents and insisted on voting quickly. Furthermore, the vote began when several members of the senate, including those opposed to the measure, were still on stack for discussion.
The Fair Business Practices Committee (FBPC) met last week to vote on a similar measure, taking into account whether or not to consent to the investigation proposed by Coca Cola and the ILO instead of on the terms of university and student organizers and the WRC. When asked in the SGA meeting what the results were of this meeting, President Wes Thompson stated that the results were supposed to remain confidential, but then verbally implied that the results were in favor of recognizing the independence of the ILO. Upon further consultation with other members of the FBPC, it was discovered that in fact the group had not voted to recognize the independence of the ILO and even had questions as to whether the ILO would even constitute an investigation.
Coca Cola put forth this proposed ‘assessment’ in order to stall the campaign, which makes sense when its contract with DePaul and some other schools is up this summer. Recalling how this last contract with the corporation set such strict guidelines for the university, waiting for a clearly corporately influenced investigation will mean pushing back a boycott until after the contract between DePaul and Coca Cola must be negotiated and signed, and after another SINALTRAINAL leader was killed this past September, that is clearly too late.
SGA’s position on the Coca Cola boycott is based on incomplete information, an unwillingness to adequately research and assess the situation, and a false assertion of student representation, and it should be rejected by the administration and student body.
The Activist Student Union is a collection of progressive and radical students at DePaul University. We are members of various other clubs including DePaul Students Against the War and we try to change the world to reflect values of solidarity, mutual aid and social justice.
You can e-mail us at asu_depaul@yahoo.com. Or come to our meetings every Tuesday at 5:00 in the Cultural Center (First floor of the student center). You can sign up for our e-mail list and get updates on our campaigns by sending an e-mail to asu_depaul-subscribe@yahoogroups.com