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Coca-Cola: Refreshingly Tasty or Egregiously Unethical?

By Bram Fulk

Last May, UWeekly ran an article spotlighting the OSU student group, “Students Against Coke” (SAC) that highlighted their efforts to spread the word about allegations of Coca-Cola’s less-than-ethical worldwide business practices. Since then, SAC has fully dedicated itself to educating the campus community on Coke’s ethical shortcomings in the hope that it will generate a serious discussion among students, faculty, and the administration on whether or not OSU really needs that certain cold, crisp taste in its life. Now, with the university’s ten-year, $30 million contract with Coke expiring in June, it’s crunch time for SAC.

Just to recap, there have been numerous allegations of serious human rights violations leveled against Coke over the years. These criticisms range from racial discrimination and monopolization to health hazards and even questionable connections to Nazi Germany. However, some of the most serious and most publicized affairs deal with the company’s practices in the countries of Columbia, India, and El Salvador.

Union leaders in Columbia fought for the rights of laborers at Coke’s main Latin American bottler. Their campaign hit a bit of a snag, however, when the company supposedly hired mercenaries and had the union leaders murdered. On top of that, union activists were fired for attending meetings and their families were kidnapped and tortured.

In India, Coke plants are tapping into the underground aqueducts that supply farms and they’re stealing the water to produce their products. If the villagers’ crops manage to survive even with their water being stolen, they oftentimes get ruined by the “fertilizer” (pesticides mixed with raw sewage) that Coke sells back to the farmers. The villages suffer; the people starve. They also dump solid, toxic waste into India’s fresh water supplies.

In El Salvador, child laborers are used to harvest the sugarcane that gives your Coke its oh-so-tasty taste.

For their part, Coca-Cola continuously denies all accusations leveled at it by the student group.

Eddie Klatka is a Human Nutrition major at OSU. Originally skeptical of the claims against Coke, Klatka took it upon himself to research the topic and became thoroughly convinced. Now, as the treasurer of SAC, Klatka actively campaigns against Coca-Cola and the company’s exclusivity on the OSU campus. At a recent event, Klatka was approached by an Indian student who thanked him and SAC for their efforts in raising awareness. The student stated that his family lived in India and that, to get a real impression of what the conditions are like, Klatka should take everything he heard and “multiply it by ten.” Obviously moved by seeing the effects of Coke’s amoral actions in his own community, Klatka’s devotion to the campaign was reaffirmed.

In his personal life, Klatka has taken a staunch anti-Coke stand. “Personally, what I’ve been doing,” says Klatka, “is I don’t drink Coke; I don’t support them at all.” However, neither Klatka nor SAC expect the university to take a similar stance. In fact, in light of all the attention being paid to the criticisms of Coca-Cola on a national and international level, SAC’s request seems exceptionally reasonable.

“[The University should] hold off on signing the contract or sign a contract for one more year [and] ask Coca-Cola to do an investigation,” says Klatka. “There’s so much negativity built up around Coca-Cola [OSU should] just take a step back and look at all this information before signing another ten or fifteen year contract.”

Ohio State wouldn’t be acting alone in that endeavor. Nearly 200 other colleges and universities across the nation either have already severed their ties with Coca-Cola or are in the process of doing so. But, for Ohio State, arriving at such a conclusion could prove costly. As previously mentioned, Coca-Cola has paid the university $30 million since 1998 for the rights to its captive audience, and the majority of that money has gone toward funding student activities. However, SAC reminds students that Coke isn’t the only large soft drink company out there, but it is the only one that has had such serious allegations of human and workers rights violations leveled against it.

For the time being, Klatka and SAC are still doing all they can to try and get OSU administrators to take a second look at the renewal. From meeting with President Gee to lobbying the USG to get the issue on this spring’s ballot, SAC shows no sign of giving up without a fight. For anyone interested in helping, Klatka encourages you to “write e-mails or letters to administrators. I think just letting administrators know this is an issue [will help].”

Klatka points out that, even though the university’s contract with Coke doesn’t come up until June, OSU won’t go a second without a soft drink contract and will likely re-sign sooner than later. Could a rival, like Pepsi, swoop down in the meantime? Not likely. “Coca-Cola put a clause [in the contract] that if [OSU] decides to speak to, say, Pepsi or some other bottler, Coca Cola has the right to back out of everything.”

In what could be one of the biggest understatements of OSU’s ten-year love affair with Coca-Cola, Klatka describes the whole situation thus: “It’s kind of frustrating.”

Originally Published: March 5, 2008

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