No Coke on campus, please
Letter to the President
Phoenix Discourse
Issue date: 10/3/07 Section: Discourse
- Page 1 of 1
Dear Rev. Michael J. Garanzini, S.J.:
My name is Erin Cox and I am in my [second] year as a student in the MA Social Justice Program at Loyola University. I have recently returned from Colombia and have become aware of human rights violations facing many union activists in this country. In saying this, I would like to call to attention the justice implications of the Coca-Cola products sold on both Water Tower and Lake Shore campuses.
Coca-Cola has had a long history of human rights abuses in Colombia, Mexico, Ghana and elsewhere. In 2001 and 2006, lawsuits were filed in the U.S. against Coca-Cola by the international Labor Rights Fund (www.LaborRights.org) and the United Steelworkers Union on behalf of SINALTRAINAL - the major union representing Coca-Cola workers in Colombia - several of its members and the survivors of Isidro Gil and Adolfo de Jesus Munera, two of its murdered officers (www.Sinaltrainal.org). The lawsuits charged that Coca-Cola's bottlers in Colombia "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced union leaders."
The seriousness of this situation is best summed up by a SINALTRAINAL officer who stated, "If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives." Loyola's mission for justice and global responsibility extends toward consumer products on campus, like the fair trade coffee currently sold in the cafeteria. Please join the global campaign to boycott Coca-Cola products and provide alternative consumer products on campus which practice corporate responsibility. I look forward to your response.
Erin E. Cox
Graduate student, social justice
My name is Erin Cox and I am in my [second] year as a student in the MA Social Justice Program at Loyola University. I have recently returned from Colombia and have become aware of human rights violations facing many union activists in this country. In saying this, I would like to call to attention the justice implications of the Coca-Cola products sold on both Water Tower and Lake Shore campuses.
Coca-Cola has had a long history of human rights abuses in Colombia, Mexico, Ghana and elsewhere. In 2001 and 2006, lawsuits were filed in the U.S. against Coca-Cola by the international Labor Rights Fund (www.LaborRights.org) and the United Steelworkers Union on behalf of SINALTRAINAL - the major union representing Coca-Cola workers in Colombia - several of its members and the survivors of Isidro Gil and Adolfo de Jesus Munera, two of its murdered officers (www.Sinaltrainal.org). The lawsuits charged that Coca-Cola's bottlers in Colombia "contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilized extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced union leaders."
The seriousness of this situation is best summed up by a SINALTRAINAL officer who stated, "If we lose the fight against Coca-Cola, we will first lose our union, next our jobs and then our lives." Loyola's mission for justice and global responsibility extends toward consumer products on campus, like the fair trade coffee currently sold in the cafeteria. Please join the global campaign to boycott Coca-Cola products and provide alternative consumer products on campus which practice corporate responsibility. I look forward to your response.
Erin E. Cox
Graduate student, social justice