Just Say No

Kick Coke reinvigorated by national victories
BY MELISSA BERTOSH
The Phoenix

With the recent refusals to renew contracts with Coca-Cola at NYU and University of Michigan, Swarthmore students involved in the international campaign to Kick Coke are rallying behind the cause for the spring semester.

The group, led by Sarah Roberts ’08, Anna Kastner ’08, Zoe Bridges-Curry ’09 and Ruth Schultz ’09, is currently making more in-depth decisions about this semester’s plans. Organizers are considering posting informational fliers across campus, planning a Paces party and possibly inviting union leaders from Colombia to speak on the matter.

“The concept is to raise awareness, make a difference and expose the facts, but we also want students to have fun while doing so,” Schultz said. The first Coke-Free Friday of the semester will take place tomorrow. Sign-up sheets should be available for students interested in taking part in the action.

Students working on the campaign have spent the past semester working with college administrators to respond to the 179 human rights violations of Coca-Cola’s workers, including nine murders of factory workers.

An investigative report released by the New York City Fact-Finding Delegation on Coca-Cola in Colombia revealed the company’s numerous crimes, such as the abduction and torture of union activists’ family members, the firing of union members who had attended union meetings and the company’s pressuring of workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights.

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