Report from Jeremy Rayner, Berkeley, Cal., May 13, 2003

Coke Campaigners,

I just wanted to give an update on what’s going on out here at UC Berkeley, and also let people know some of what they can expect from the Coke PR people so they can prepare.

This week Coke gave a presentation at the UC Berkeley Store Operations Board, which handles the food and beverage contracting (UCB has a huge contract with Coke). It was a fairly slick, PowerPoint kind of job. Nevertheless, it was totally incoherent and we managed to embarrass them seriously in a question-and-answer session, counting it as a sizeable victory in the campaign out here.

Here are their arguments:

1. Coke bottlers are independent of the Company.

2. In contraction to the above, Coke has very rigid standards and does not run sweatshops.

3. Coke has been exonerated in Colombian and U.S. courts.

4. Coke pays for the protection of trade unionists, including protection for William Mendoza.

5. Sinaltrainal represents a minority of Coke workers (and the leadership does not really represent its own workers). Most workers and unions are opposed to the boycott. As an example, the Coke rep gave the union Sinaltraibec (sp?), which they said is opposed to the boycott. They also made vague references to “other unions.” Overall, Coke has good relations with trade unions, they said.

6. Sinaltrainal and the whole campaign is just motivated by ideological opposition to multinationals.

7. What’s a murder or two in a country as violent as Colombia (besides, managers have been killed, too).

8. Coke was exonerated by an "independent investigation" which they commissioned. (This was produced by White and Case.).

9. It’s all a bunch of lies. Coke bottlers have nothing to do with paramilitaries.

We had a prepared list of rebuttals and questions based on United Steelworkers attorney Dan Kovalik’s response, “Coca-Cola Denies All Responsibility; ILRF, Colombian Unionists Respond.” Click here for response.

The Coke rep got very uncomfortable when confronted with specifics — especially specific allegations of relations with paramilitaries and about the murders. These they are unable to refute. Also, requests to see their “independent” study, which is not actually publicly available, made them very uncomfortable. We are currently collecting information on Sinaltraibec. We have figured out they are a company union. If anyone has concrete info on them, we would appreciate it.

Best of luck to all,
Jeremy Rayner