IU should keep Coke

IU’s exclusive contract with Coca-Cola expires June 30, and soon the Anti-Sweatshop Advisory Committee will make a recommendation in light of the accusations labor rights groups have made against Coke.

If the committee decides there is no substance to these charges, it will be acting in the best interest of IU and its students. It will also be acting in the best interest of the workers Coke stands accused of exploiting.

Criticism of Coke generally revolves around accusations of conspiring with paramilitary groups to harass and harm its workers. Critics claim that Coke, in conspiracy with its local bottler, was complicit in the death of nine plant workers from 1990 to 2002.

The Anti-Sweatshop Committee was created in May 2000 in response to concerns about maintaining labor standards for IU’s suppliers. The committee is made up of both students and faculty and is chaired by Dean of Students Dick McKaig. It will have to investigate claims made against Coke involving Colombia as well as charges that it was contaminating groundwater with its plants in India.

Other Big Ten universities, including the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan, have boycotted Coke. The University of Michigan ended its boycott in 2006 after Coca-Cola agreed to support a review of its practices in Colombia by the International Labor Organization and engaged in talks with the Energy and Resources Institute to investigate its practices in India.

Legal investigations into Coke’s practices found no evidence of wrongdoing. A 2001 lawsuit, filed in Miami and against Coke, ended with a dismissal. In 2006, the court also exonerated the bottling plants Coke had contracted. An independent investigation by the Colombian prosecutor general similarly found nothing to back up claims Coke was involved with murder.

Any violence to which workers in Colombia have been subjected can likely be attributed to the country’s continuing armed conflict. Corporations like Coke, far from making the situation in Colombia worse, have provided Colombian workers with better opportunities. Rather than using the chaos in Columbia as in excuse to blame corporations, both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times endorsed the Colombian free trade agreement.

For many students, the skepticism directed towards IU’s Coke contract is well-intentioned and based on a genuine desire to see better conditions for workers all over the world. But others seem to attack Coke simply because it is a successful global brand. They make the mistake of blaming big corporations for poverty and see free trade as the cause of sweat shops instead of the best ticket out of them.

A university should stand by its principles as well as its students, but groups like No Sweat! are not necessarily representative of student opinion – just as doing business with global corporations who provide opportunities all over the world is not necessarily against IU’s progressive values.