May 14, 2004

• Colombia is a pretty fucked up place whether you work for Coke or anyone else. According to the data provided in the NYC commission's report, the murders of union organizers in Colombia numbers in the thousands. Do the other soft drink and beer bottlers have union shops? Is the group going against Coke because it a huge multinational and hopefully all other businesses in Colombia will fall in line if it caves? I couldn't find information on the site that proves the accusation that Coke called up the AUP and had them off the unionists. Sure Coke is an evil corporation and gets kids addicted to sugar water, but I doubt it took a contract out on its union organizers. If anything I'll bet Coke is paying off the militant groups to keep them from blowing up the bottling plant or delivery trucks. And did the City of NY pay for the fact finding trip? Certainly there's a Colombian element to the city, but the commission is not asking NYC to prohibit sales in city buildings or denying sales of the product in city-sponsored events.
• birdherder - I'd suggest that Coca Cola offers sweetened sugar water, but it's the parents that get them addicted to it, since they have the buying power.
• "Sure Coke is an evil corporation and gets kids addicted to sugar water" ah c'mon... thats just silly.
• erm. i love coke. well, i hardly buy any actual carbonated drinks any more, but if i'm in the mood i'll grab a coke over a pepsi product any day. as part of a union i've heard about this. as part of a union i've also come to understand that anyone in a union is indoctrinated into a world in which any decision by "management" is inherently wrong and corrupt, any pro-union decision by management is never enough, and any action against any union anywhere is immediately and 100% supported in a show of "solidarity" regardless of any tedious facts that might get in the way. often there's a real, legitimate problem at the root of many of these union actions. but it very seldom seems to be as bad as it's made out to be, and there's never any attempt on the part of the union to consider the evidence against the action, just the evidence supplied by the union group that is calling for the action in the first place. from the website hosting coke's response to this "killer cola" campaign, i'd say that the union people have a pretty hard time showing that actions against union members in coca-cola bottling plants have it any harder than union members elsewhere in colombia. the evidence seems to show that any union member, anywhere in the country, is in danger. why? who knows. maybe the drug cartels are unhappy if workers get paid more at a bottling plant than they do working in the coca fields, because then they lose their cheap labor base. maybe the coffee middlemen are unhappy if they can't scalp farmers on bean prices, because farmers who join unions can make a decent living doing something besides growing coffee. one of the women in my lab is from colombia. she's here working on her doctorate. she tells me that colombia is a beautiful country (i've seen some pictures, and i really have to agree), and that she would really love to show us some of the amazing things there. but she also warns that colombia isn't a safe country, that violence can happen anywhere to anyone at any time, for seemingly any reason. it's not at all limited to any one bottling company. personally, i think that by and large unions have done some great things for workers. but i also feel that the culture of unionism has blinded a lot of union members to their own shortcomings, and has created an environment in which the workers and the bosses can't really talk any more, because they're separated by layers of tradition, lawyers, beaurocracy, and rhetoric, on both sides.
• since we are [loosely] on the topic, my daughter who is now 29 won't drink any cola. /mind you, from early childhood i repeated the refrain "coke...yuch!" to her and kept her on juices or maybe ginger ale as long as i had the all-encompassing power. from there she spurned offers on her own. //she still hasn't decided if she's grateful or not. kids are so unforgiving, sometimes.