Chronicle of Higher Education - web daily - December 9, 2005
NYU Joins Coca-Cola Boycott Over Allegations of Union Busting and Rights Violations in Colombia
By REBECCA ARONAUER
New York University announced on Thursday that it would no longer sell any Coca-Cola products in its campus facilities because of alleged human-rights violations and suppression of unions at the soft-drink maker's bottling affiliates in Colombia.
The University Senate, comprising students, faculty members, and administrators, voted last month to ban all Coca-Cola goods if the company did not agree to an independent investigation on working conditions at its plants in Colombia by December 8.
The company objected to the terms of the proposed investigation in part because any new evidence arising from it could be used in a pending lawsuit against one of its bottlers in Colombia.
Kari Bjorhus, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, denied allegations made by the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, which has asserted that the company was complicit in the murder, kidnapping, and illegal detention of union workers by a paramilitary organization in Colombia. An auditing group hired by Coca-Cola found no human-rights or worker violations in Colombia in a survey conducted last spring, Ms. Bjorhus said. The company still hopes reach an agreement with NYU and other institutions on the conditions of an independent investigation, she said.
Ms. Bjorhus's biggest concern about NYU's ban on Coke is not the loss in sales, but the possible public-relations repercussions. "Even though the direct business impact is small," she said, "NYU is a thought-leading university."
Several other colleges already ban Coca-Cola, but NYU, the largest private university in the country, is the most prominent to join the boycott so far. The university does not have a contract with Coca-Cola, but the company's products have been sold on the campus through third-party distributors. As of Friday, however, those products will no longer be available.
"People will have to go elsewhere if they really want Coca-Cola products," said Josh Taylor, a spokesman for NYU.