We welcome the opportunity to engage in open dialogue with schools on whose campuses Coca-Cola has a presence. In this spirit, we would appreciate the opportunity to comment on and correct inaccuracies recently leveled by the activist community and cited by concerned student groups.
To ground discussion, it is essential to explain the significant challenges in Colombia.
Over the past several decades, the country has experienced much internal conflict. This has impacted trade union leaders in many industries and other people from all walks of life. Yet despite the volatile environment, Coca-Cola and its bottlers have preserved operations and provided safe, stable economic opportunities for the people of Colombia.
It is important to us that Stony Brook University students know that we deplore and condemn all acts of violence committed by any paramilitary group in Colombia. As just one example, in 2005 the Company signed a joint statement with the IUF (the International Organization for Food and Beverage Unions) confirming that Coca-Cola workers are ‘allowed to exercise rights to union membership and collective bargaining without pressure or interference.’ In a country in which violence against union members has deterred all but 4 percent of workers from unionizing, 31 percent of Coca-Cola bottler employees belong to unions.
It is important also that Stony Brook students have the opportunity to learn what credible third-parties have said:
A public statement made by SINALTRAINBEC, a Colombian union representing bottler employers, said that it has ‘not a single indication’ that Coca-Cola or any of its bottling partners have links to anti-union violence.
The United Workers’ Confederation of Colombia (CUT), which includes SINALTRAINAL as a member, has repeatedly stated that boycotts against companies in Colombia will not help to address the problem of anti-union violence in this country.
Two different judicial inquiries in Colombia ‘- one in a Colombian Court and one by the Colombian Attorney General ‘- found no evidence to support the allegations that bottler management conspired to intimidate or threaten trade unionists.
These allegations were the thrust of a lawsuit filed in 2001 against The Coca-Cola Company in a U.S. District Court in Miami; the Company was dismissed as a defendant. On September 29, 2006 the court issued a decision to dismiss the two Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia from all remaining cases as well.
In addition to labor, we also share students’ concerns about water scarcity, and are committed to global water stewardship. While the world has a finite amount of freshwater, all of humanity’s personal, agricultural and industrial needs can be met if water is managed properly. Reducing water scarcity and enhancing water quality for our operations and communities we serve are direct and vital business concerns.
Working with the global conservation organization World Wildlife Fund, we are participating in projects to help protect and preserve seven of the world’s most critical freshwater river basins: Mekong of Southeast Asia, Rio Grande/Rio Bravo of the Chihuahuan Desert, U.S. Southeast Rivers and Streams, Basin of the Mesoamerican Reef, East Africa Basin of Lake Malawi, Danube, and China’s Yangtze Basin.
Stony Brook students have raised specific concerns about our water practices in India, a country in which the beverage industry is responsible for less than one-half of one percent of total water usage. Overall, the beverage industry is one of the most efficient users of water in the country. In fact, The Coca-Cola Company has reduced our water use ratios in India by 34 percent between 1999 and 2005.
Just one example of our company’s commitment to water stewardship in India is our company’s installation of 270 rainwater harvesting structures spread across 17 states in India, including locations at schools and farms. The collected water is used for recharging aquifers and also for plant functions, a substantial amount of which is returned to groundwater systems, thereby helping to replenish groundwater resources.
We sincerely value our long-standing partnership with Stony Brook University students and value this opportunity to share our labor practices and business in Colombia and India. I welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues further with students.
