FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Micah Uetricht
muetricht at luc dot edu
231.830.7960

LOYOLA STUDENTS CALL FOR UNIV. TO END RELATIONSHIP WITH COCA-COLA
Several student groups including Loyola Students Against Sweatshops and the United Student Government Association of Loyola University Chicago are calling for their university to end its relationship with the Coca-Cola Corporation when their contract expires. The call is in response to the corporation’s complicity in murder, torture, and kidnapping of leaders and members of the SINALTRAINAL union in several bottling factories contracted by Coca-Cola in Colombia, as well as pollution and creation of groundwater shortages due to handling of waste and extraction of water in India. The groups will be making this call publicly at a rally on November 8th at 5 PM, on Halas Field at the university’s Lake Shore Campus in Rogers Park. The rally will feature a former SINALTRAINAL worker from Colombia, Luis Cordona, speaking on his experiences as a union worker in a Coke-contracted bottling plant.
The university’s Student Government (USGA) voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution calling for Loyola not to renew their contract with Coca-Cola, joining the student groups Loyola Greens, Loyola Students Against Sweatshops, and Loyola Anti-War Network in their opposition to the company and its practices. The resolution was introduced by the Vice President of the J.U.S.T.I.C.E Paul Nappier. “It is essential that as students at a Jesuit University that prides itself on its focus on social justice, we not remain silent in the face of human rights violations,” Nappier stated. “The student government correctly responded to those students speaking on behalf of those with no voice who have suffered while working for Coca-Cola.” The school’s Vending Committee is set to make a decision on the renewal November 16 after the same USGA resolution condemned the committee for not involving students in the decision-making process.
Loyola is one of hundreds of colleges and universities across the country campaigning to end their school’s relationship with Coca-Cola. Over forty schools have successfully terminated or chosen not to renew their contracts based on Coke’s involvement in human rights and environmental abuses around the world. Five of those schools have been from Illinois, including DePaul University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, College of DuPage, Dominican University, and Lake Forest College.
Coca-Cola does business with several bottling factories in Colombia, where workers are represented by the SINALTRAINAL union. Since 1990, eight SINALTRAINAL leaders from four different plants have been murdered by paramilitary groups, one of whom was killed on the factory floor. In some cases, these paramilitaries have acted with the direct support of the management of the factories; in others, management has allowed these crimes to happen. In addition, union members and their families have been kidnapped and tortured by these same paramilitary groups, in an effort to convince workers to leave the union. This effort has been successful: SINALTRAINAL membership has shrunken considerably since the beginning of the violence. Coca-Cola has repeatedly refused to allow independent investigations to take place into the matter, despite promising the University of Michigan that they would do so if the university reinstated its contract with Coke. Because of this, SINALTRAINAL has called for a boycott of Coca-Cola and all of its products.
In addition to its crimes in Colombia, Coca-Cola also stands accused of causing groundwater shortages and pollution in various locations in India, torture and intimidation of union workers in Turkey, and union-busting in Pakistan, Guatemala, Russia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.
“Loyola is affiliated with the Jesuits, a tradition with a long and proud history of standing up for issues of social justice and human rights,” said Micah Uetricht, a Loyola Students Against Sweatshops Organizer. “It should practice the purported values that the administration trumpets every chance they get. The only way to do that in this situation is to end the contract with Coca-Cola.”