Coke ban defeated.

Gael

NUI Maynooth have choosen not to follow the example of UCD and Trinity in banning the sale of Coke products in their students' union.

612 votes against 398 in referendum

OfflerCrocGod

At least May has some sense:rolleyes:, stupid arts students voting againts Coke.

Memnoch

why ban coke? i don't get it

jesus_thats_gre

It some crazy theory some people have about coke!


I really hope this is not the complete reason?

http://www.cwc.ie/news/art04/coke.html

On Wednesday 19th of November the students in UCD reaffirmed in a referendum their decision to boycott Coca Cola products and remove them from shops and bars owned or managed by the Students Union. The decision had already been taken in a previous referendum where they voted by a narrow margin to introduce the boycott. A second referendum was necessary because a group of right wing students collected sufficient signatures to call for a rerun.

Coca Cola were not to be found wanting in this matter. They dispatched their Director of Communications in Latin America, Rafael Fernandez Quiros to Ireland to lobby students, political parties and to meet with the trade union that represents Coke workers in Ireland, SIPTU.

Coke have admitted in these private meetings to be "concerned" (read very worried/scared) at the scope of the boycott in Ireland. So much so, for the first time ever Coca Cola agreed to publicly debate the issues on the Pat Kenny Show. This had never happened before and due to Mr Fernandez’s poor performance on the show, it probably won’t happen again.

The boycott has not just been limited to UCD. Sandino’s bar in Derry and the John Hewitt Bar in Belfast have both stopped stocking coke products and the union at the Royal Victoria Hospital has agreed to ask management to no longer stock coke products. Alongside that, a referendum is being organised in Trinity and a couple of other universities are seriously considering it. Ireland is of strategic importance to Coca Cola, its largest concentrate factories are here in Drogheda and Ballina and supply practically all of the concentrate used in European bottling plants. Hence, Coke’s real fear at the spread of a boycott in Ireland.

The boycott in Ireland is part of an international boycott that was called for by the union Sinaltrainal and has the backing of the congress of trade unions in Colombia (CUT), the Latin American Social Forum and also the World Social Forum. The union itself has received support from the United Steel Workers Association in the United States which is taking the case against Coke in the US courts.

The court case revolves around some sample cases of the type of abuses that have been alleged against Coca Cola. To date eight Coca Cola trade unionists have been murdered, however the case before the US courts deals with the murder of one them, Isidro Segundo Gil. In this particular case there are a number of undisputed facts; a) Segundo Gil was murdered INSIDE the Coca Cola plant b) the plant manager had prior to his murder publicly stated that he would use the paramilitaries to smash the union.

The other cases before the courts revolve around the false terrorist charges brought against the leadership of the union by the Coca Cola bottling plant in the city of Bucaramanga and also the threats and torture of other trade unionists.

Of the 3,600 trade unionists murdered since 1986 when the CUT was founded, not one prosecution has been taken against anyone. This is why the Sinaltrainal union which has tried to get redress through the Colombian courts had to go to the US courts under the Alien Torts Act and why it also had to call for a boycott. The Colombian justice system protects murders and tortures and no justice can be expected there. Consumers and institutions have the power to bring pressure to bear by boycotting all Coke products, which include Coke, Fanta, Lilt, Sprite, BPM etc. Just check the label, or if it is in a fridge marked Coca Cola then all products in that fridge should be Coke products as they don’t allow their fridges to be used for other companies products.

Some interesting points are made here.. http://su.netsoc.tcd.ie/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=282



My favourite being:

Democracy should not be used in a democratic society ( as ucd is ) to tell free individuals what they can and can't buy. Coke is not damaging to the individual who buys it. Im sure the UCDSU do many things that in the eyes of many people are immoral. This kind of absolutism signifies old socialist command statism at its worst.

Bah?

DadaKopf

This was in the UCD College Tribune in the lead-up to the second UCD referendum.

On the first count, the US State Department has confirmed that these murders did take place within a Coca-Cola bottling plant and, while Coca-Cola was dismissed from the case in a Florida court on a technicality, this admission by the US government implies that Coke is on some level responsible for the murders and the safety its workers in Columbia. Waghorne’s second point expressed concern over SU profits and jobs, claiming that the effect “would be negative in terms of student jobs [and] Students’ Union revenue”. The manager of the SU shop in the library building said, “jobs could be at risk” – with no information on actual projected losses, this issue seemed more like a scare tactic than anything else.

The ‘no’ side’s third, and most prominent issue relied on ‘freedom of choice’ as the primary reason to oppose the ban. Waghorne claimed that it affected our ability to make moral decisions – he said this despite the fact that we all were being given a choice on whether we wanted to make a collective moral decision. Could we really take his claim seriously? It seems that underlying this argument was the simple desire to drink Coke. Underlying Waghorne’s pseudo-moral argument was an understanding of choice as consumer choice, not real choice. Even on campus, with the ban in effect, we will still be able to buy Coke on campus so Waghorne had no reason to worry, except for perhaps a little inconvenience. His stance amounted to a tacit support of Coke’s own amorality and it diminished into a position of relativist moral incoherence.

Are we really so short-sighted that we can't see how our choices in the West are predicated on lack of choice in the developing world?

By choices, I mean real choices. I don't mean the power we have to choose between fifty different types of blue cheese – I mean choices about who you want in government, where you want to live, how you want to live, what you want to do with your life. Real choices like what you spend your $2 daily wage on or whether you can join a trade union.

The United Nations sees development, and freedom, as the expansion of choices. This depends on a lot of things like education, wages, health and how long you live. A better education means better job opportunities; higher wages means you can buy more, save and invest; better health makes you happier and more productive and, of course, you can get more done if you stick around for longer. It's true that trade can open up doors for people but, as is so often the case over here, consumer choices are confused with real choices.

The irony is that, often appearing like a revolutionary vanguard, punctuating ochre horizons with bright red, claiming to expand people’s choices, encouraging people to “choose Coke”, Coca-Cola has not exactly delivered its shipment. The corporation has acted all over the world to limit people’s real choices and consumer choices, and consequently our ability to make moral decisions.

Let’s look at some examples.

In 1996, Coca-Cola negotiated with Colorado School District 11 to allow Coca-Cola to become the schools’ exclusive beverage supplier. This decision allowed Coca-Cola to launch an aggressive marketing campaign in school corridors and classrooms and to obtain significant concessions from the school district. Amidst a climate of diminishing state school funding, District 11 felt that in order for them to continue providing a decent level of education, they required the sponsorship of a major corporation. Coca-Cola saw it as an opportunity to boost profits and guarantee a future generation of consumers. A win-win situation, it seemed.

District 11, and parental associations, found that the deal was undermining their ability to make decisions about their children. The terms of contract placed enormous pressure on schools to meet sales quotas otherwise they would face reduced payments by Coke. Simultaneously, the deal attracted the attention of parents who felt that, with the school taking on the role of salesman rather than educator, their children’s diet was a matter of concern. But with the pressures imposed by Coke, both teachers and parents found themselves less able to decide for themselves the quality of education and the health of their children.

At third-level, in December 2002, Coke signed an exclusive contract with the University of Montana providing them with a monopoly of soft-drink sales on campus in return for the rights to use the University’s name, teams, logos and mascots in advertising.

Coca-Cola has also been linked to an effort by American ‘Big Sugar’ to challenge and if possible conceal the findings of the World Health Organisation on the dangers of sugar in a soon to be published report, ‘Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases’. The Sugar Association, in conjunction with the US Council for International Business – which includes Coca-Cola – is challenging the WHO’s findings that sugar should account for no more than 10% of daily intake (they put the estimate at 25% and claim the report to be unscientific). Big Sugar and its allies have threatened to lobby Washington to withdraw the US’s $406m funding to the WHO if the report is published in 2004.

Furthermore, a BBC documentary alleged that Coca-Cola has been acting to misinform the WHO through an organisation founded by Coke and other corporations called the International Life Sciences Institute. More than that, the organisation has been accredited to the WHO. If these allegations are true, it appears that Coca-Cola by misinforming the public at a high level on the damaging effects of sugar is affecting our abilities to make rational decisions about the safety of what we eat.

Coke is affecting people’s real choices. In schools, they’re affecting the quality of education and children’s health. In the UN, they’re involved in affecting the very organisation that was set up to improve global development. They’re even challenging theirs and Waghorne’s mantra of consumer choice by signing monopoly deals. As this referendum revealed, they’re even turning their backs on their responsibility to their workers; they should be using their close friendships with governments to protect their workers and make it safer for Unions to operate within their factories, which is a right enshrined in the UN Charter. Human rights are the issue and human rights were the reason for the referendum.

But after all this, does the referendum count for anything? Not if it’s viewed in isolation. The UCDSU has become the first in the world to officially boycott Coca-Cola and similar boycotts have been set in motion in DCU and UL. As the news spreads, similar actions will take place in other universities around the world and bit-by-bit, the pressure on Coke might force them to take Sinaltrainal (Columbia’s Labour Union) seriously and accept responsibility for these murders. Columbia is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade union member and Coke isn’t responsible beyond the confines of its empire – but that’s a pretty big empire, it has to be held to account and we have to start somewhere.

And on another note, the Sinaltrainal guy who came to Ireland, Luis Eduardo Garcia, nearly had his son kidnapped by paramilitaries just about two months ago. It's widely known that these actions are directed by Coke-owned (yes, Coke always owns majority shares in their affiliates) bottling plant managers.

And, recently, a number of influental business lobbies have found friendly ears in the US government who are attempting to get rid of the Alien Tort Act, claiming it's a piece of outmoded legislation. Me arse.

Memnoch

ban coke then,

i certainly won't buy a coke product again and will do my best to inform all my friends about this..

thanks for pointing this information to me.

tuxy

this is the ban pat patterson supports?

Nuttzz

Students!! next they will vote to ban final year exams.....

ixoy

Has there been any projected loss in sales due to the ban? I mean you can still get coke in Trinity's vending machines, for example. In fact it's only banned in a small number of areas so it seems like it wouldn't have a huge impact. I'm assuming that Coca Cola are worried more about the brand's image, given that Coca Cola's "coke" is the world's second best known word (after "okay"). Of course what influence a ban here has on trade practices in South America, particularly when it's a massive corporation, is anyone's guess.

DadaKopf

Originally posted by ixoy
Has there been any projected loss in sales due to the ban? I mean you can still get coke in Trinity's vending machines, for example. In fact it's only banned in a small number of areas so it seems like it wouldn't have a huge impact. I'm assuming that Coca Cola are worried more about the brand's image, given that Coca Cola's "coke" is the world's second best known word (after "okay"). Of course what influence a ban here has on trade practices in South America, particularly when it's a massive corporation, is anyone's guess.

In UCD anyway, some shops registered a slight decline in profits, the only shop to make a loss was the SU shop in the student centre. And that was because it was making a loss anyway.

The boycott campaign has had some impact, if not the entirely desired one. Bebidas, one of the major bottlers (and not the company instigated in the Alien Tort case) has closed down between 12-15 plants, with Coke moving its operations to elsewhere in Colombia or to other countries.

Furthermore, some Coke bottling plants began entering negotiations with another food and drink workers' union a few months ago, but talks broke down when the union realised it was actually a ploy to break them.

During the UCD campaign, Coke were certainly concerned about the ban. They sent their Colombian Number 1 and various shady exec/marketing types sat in at various meetings. For obvious reasons they don't want a precedent to be set.

But the Irish campaign goes on. NCAD just voted for a ban - 2 to 1 in favour.

RossFixxxed

1) Coke were proven to be innocent of this in a court of law.

2) The shops in UCD are bleeding money. Coke paid a lot towards those shops, hence the signs that were over them etc.... 19k to the Science Shop.

3) I want to drink coke. If I choose not to, it should be my choice!

I'm glad I'm out of there now, it's being ruined by rich boys pretending to care about the "worker".

Put another way, 50 MILLION DEAD in Russia. Next person I see in a CCCP T-Shirt, I swear to god.

Students need something to """""fight""""" against. This is just sad.

bus77

Coke gives money to sport, Pepsi gives money to Britiney Spears.

Coke, made from a secret recipe and has vegetable stuff in it thats good for you, Pepsi is just sweet.

The choice is clear......

Johnmb

A big deal is being made about some people being killed on property owned by Coke. Yet nobody has ever put forward what they believe Coke should have done to prevent it. Hire a private army? Give up, close down, and make a lot of already poor people unemployed? Ban members of that particular union? What exactly? That union is seen by one lot of terrorists as being associated to another lot of terrorists, that much is known as fact (not that they are associated, but that they are believed to be associated). Nobody has ever provided proof that any managers in the Coke plants have any connection to any terrorists. None of the other unions seem to have had any such problems, and the attempted court case in Florida seemed to me, back when I read about it last year, to be more about getting the union money than anything else. (relatives would have gotten something, but the big money was going to the union, if successful). What would happen if the IRA walked into the Coke plant in Ireland and shot some people? Would that mean that the Irish managers are associated with the IRA?

DadaKopf

Originally posted by Johnmb
What would happen if the IRA walked into the Coke plant in Ireland and shot some people? Would that mean that the Irish managers are associated with the IRA?

Coke would be if those managers were known to have directed the IRA to shoot up the plant.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published many chilling reports about the relationships between politicians, the military, paramilitaries and local businessmen. In fact, this whole situation was made worse by the current president, Alvaro Uribe, who is a member of one of the South America's most powerful drugs cartels. He and his family are also close relatives of former living drug-lord Pablo Escobar. As a lawyer, his job was to fix Colombian law to suit the interests of the corrupt minority, including legalizing private armies.

1) Coke were proven to be innocent of this in a court of law.

No, Coke was dismissed from the case on a minor technicality. Coke's innocence or guilt was never judged by the court.

Yet nobody has ever put forward what they believe Coke should have done to prevent it.

Well, let's see. Fire the managers might be one. They have a majority vote on the bottling companies' boards afterall. They could have allowed their workers to retain their right of union membership, as enshrined in the UN Charter and Declaration of Civil and Political Rights, instead of allowing them to be firebombed by paramilitaries widely known to have been directed by plant managers.

Corporations protect themselves by indirectly operating affiliates and running front organizations. We all know this, so how come Coke fans keep denying common sense facts?

Because people have been told to OBEY.

I can't believe people are somehow defending a commercial organization over and above human beings' fundamental human rights.

RossFixxxed

Let's all shut down corporations. And live in the cold and dark and die of fear and old age at 24. Ringringringringringringringring banana phone.

Johnmb

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Coke would be if those managers were known to have directed the IRA to shoot up the plant.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published many chilling reports about the relationships between politicians, the military, paramilitaries and local businessmen. In fact, this whole situation was made worse by the current president, Alvaro Uribe, who is a member of one of the South America's most powerful drugs cartels. He and his family are also close relatives of former living drug-lord Pablo Escobar. As a lawyer, his job was to fix Colombian law to suit the interests of the corrupt minority, including legalizing private armies.

Yet you can't provide a single shred of evidence to back up your accusations, which are slanderous unless you have proof. Plus, it doesn't deal with the people at Coke.

No, Coke was dismissed from the case on a minor technicality. Coke's innocence or guilt was never judged by the court.

Then they are innocent, or does the term "innocent until proven guilty" not mean anything to you?

Well, let's see. Fire the managers might be one.

On what grounds? Because you don't like them?

They have a majority vote on the bottling companies' boards afterall. They could have allowed their workers to retain their right of union membership, as enshrined in the UN Charter and Declaration of Civil and Political Rights,

None of the other dozen or so unions seems to have a problem with management. Where did you read that the rights of workers to join unions was removed by the managers?

instead of allowing them to be firebombed by paramilitaries widely known to have been directed by plant managers.

More slanderous statements don't make a point. Where is your proof that that manager's have anything to do with the paramilitaries, let alone can direct them to do things?

Corporations protect themselves by indirectly operating affiliates and running front organizations. We all know this, so how come Coke fans keep denying common sense facts?

What are you going on about? Coke franchise out the bottling of their product. They do that everywhere. It is smart business, not protection.

Because people have been told to OBEY.

What people have been told to obey? Who have they been told to obey? Who told them to do the obeying?

I can't believe people are somehow defending a commercial organization over and above human beings' fundamental human rights.

You have yet to show that the commercial organisation has had anything to do with anything contravening human rights. All existing evidence leads to the conclusion that Coke are caught in the middle of a power struggle between right wing, and left wing paramilitary groups, nothing more.

Morpheus

UCDSU are a bunch of SWP loving left wing commies.

Its up to the individual to make his or her own choice. This is an infringement of a citizens right to choose...

They called them "right wing" students because they asked for a rerun of the election? Well... i suppose thats par for the course, when your so far left, anyone remotely near the centre is always gonna be right wing. Are these Right wing students nazis? or just coke lovers!?

Crazy crazy world... plenty of UCD and other colleges heads are doing drugs anyway...

Have these crusties nothing better to do?? where's the ban on the illegal sales of hash etc in UCD which keeps the cartels alive and well in columbia.

Come off it, anyone whos ever gone to college knows its the easiest place in the world to get your "gear" if your so inclined... Deal with the big problems before you deal with the silly ones.

Typical students union, ooh if i was in UCD, id buy a crate of the stuff and sell it in the corridoor beside the SU shop.... heh, Id start smuggling "coke" into the college, and selling it in the toilets alongside the stogie sellers

Maybe coca cola will call in the IRA to "break" the students union!

lol

Johnmb

It was just a publicity stunt by a few students, nothing more. The actual union didn't propose, or support, it (they more or less kept out, any officers who spoke out were speaking as individuals, they couldn't speak for the union as an organisation). As for buying Coke, it is still available on campus. The union doesn't have the power to ban it from campus, they can only ban it from their own shops. In the end, the only people to suffer where the students. Some lost their jobs, or had their hours reduced, and all faced price increases of between 20% and 50% in order to purchase any bottles of Coke, Sprite, Fanta, etc.

Gael

I am a Maynooth student and I would like to bring to your attention the anti-Maynooth diatribes I've been reading on Indymedia saying how the Catholic Church is to blame for the rejection of the ban. You can be quite sure none of these people have ever spent any time in Maynooth.

Can I make this quite clear to you all:

In Maynooth there is one campus with a Pontifical University and a seminary with a few hundred students.
Across the road from it there is a seperate, secular, National University of Ireland which operates and offers the same range of subjects as any other NUI like UCD, NUIG, NUIC etc.
You can do arts, computer science, engineering technical engineering, physics etc. etc.
Students of theology do it throught the pontifical university NOT through the NUI, which is secular and non-denominational.
The NUI has 5,500+ students. No doubt this comes as a surprise to many who thought Maynooth was no bigger than the average secondary school. NUI Maynooth is also unusual out of all Irish university in that about 65% of it's students are women.
The Catholic Church, unlike certain allegations and dinosaur old stereotypes, do not control the NUI with some iron fist. In fact NUIM campus is seen as one of of the most liberal and accepting colleges towards the gay community.
So please people clean out the mental cobwebs and come out of the nineteen fifties. NUI Maynooth is as independently minded as any other university. We did not reject the Coke ban because of the Catholic Church!

Anyone seeking to be more enlightened about NUIM in the 21st century should go to the college website at

www.may.ie

Nietzschean

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
At least May has some sense:rolleyes:, stupid arts students voting againts Coke.

Too true.

Gael

Thank you!

spanner

Originally posted by bus77
Coke gives money to sport, Pepsi gives money to Britiney Spears.

Coke, made from a secret recipe and has vegetable stuff in it thats good for you, Pepsi is just sweet.

The choice is clear......


how dare you!
pespi is the way forward, i love pespi. at least there is some taste and body in pespi giving you a bit of a kick unlike this fizzy water you called coke

DadaKopf

At least May has some sense, stupid arts students voting againts Coke.

Hmm, Arts Faculty = 2,000 students. Total UCD students = 19,000. How do you suppose that worked out?

ixoy

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Hmm, Arts Faculty = 2,000 students. Total UCD students = 19,000. How do you suppose that worked out?

It should be clear - arts students don't ever do a tap of work, so they've more time to vote
More seriously, Arts is a discipline more likely to attract people into sociology, politics, etc. I'd imagine it gets the more hardline fringe element likely to vote - but this is just a supposition.
Far more relevant is the question of what percentage of students voted in these boycotts? Or was it actually done by the student unions on behalf of the students?

earwicker

Yes, but those apparently non-Arts geniuses who didn't vote and are carping after the vote didn't go their way don't have any excuse to whine. They had their chance and blew it. Workloads in the respective disciplines have SFA to do with it.