R
ay
Rogers isn’t afraid to speak highly about his own projects.
“Frankly, I’ve seen organizations and unions spend millions
and millions of dollars and what they accomplish can’t begin
to compare with what we’ve already accomplished.” Rogers
is the head of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke and Corporate Campaign
Inc. (CCI).
The
International Labor Rights Fund and United Steelworkers of America
filed suit against Coca- Cola in 2001 on behalf of SINALTRAINAL,
a union in Colombia which had been the target of attacks by paramilitary
forces. The case was also brought on behalf of some of the organizers
who had been targeted and the estate of one of the murdered members
of SINALTRAINAL, Isidro Gil. The suit contended that this was done
on behalf of the bottlers in Colombia, and Coca-Cola more speci-
fically. In the same year that many of these abuses took place,
Coca- Cola made over $4 billion in profit and CEO Douglas Daft received
$105 million in compensation.
Coca-Cola
scored a victory by initially getting the suit thrown out, though
this decision is being appealed. Thereafter it was decided that
a more cohesive public campaign would be needed to supplement the
legal strategy; that is where CCI came in. After conducting months
of research into the company, CCI came up with a four-part plan:
challenge Coca- Cola’s reputation, attack their markets, target
specific shareholders, and target specific investors. This strategy
seeks to divide the decision makers against themselves. As Rogers
says, “It’s just being able to raise the stakes high enough
that it’s going to cost Coke a lot more than they have to gain
if they don’t clean up the situation.”
Public
Relations
T
he
first part of Rogers’s plan is public relations. Their aim,
he says, is “to mount a threat to the image and reputation
that Coke has spent billions of dollars and decades to create”—an
image clearly important to a company that spends over $1 million
a day on U.S. advertising alone. Campaign to Stop Killer Coke has
produced hundreds of thousands of posters, stickers, and pamphlets,
with professional looking graphics and strong messages. One poster
shows an open coffin with the heading “Murder—It’s
the Real Thing.” These pamphlets are distributed at protests
and Coca-Cola meetings. A small idea that had large results.
On
October 23, 2003, Deval L. Patrick, executive vice president, general
counsel, and secretary for the Coca-Cola Company was to receive
an award from Equal Justice Works, a public interest law group.
In attendance were Janet Reno, Alexis Herman, and others. Campaign
to Stop Killer Coke stood outside the Washington, DC Marriot handing
out flyers mentioning Coca-Cola’s abuses and specifically targeting
Patrick. At the ceremony, the public interest and pro-bono advocating
attorneys asked Patrick about the claims, at which time he publicly
stated that there would be an independent investigation into the
matter.
As
the
Washington Post
reported on April 22, though initially
claiming to be supportive of an investigation, CEO Douglas Daft
later quashed it. This was a significant contributing factor in
Patrick’s resignation on Easter Sunday 2004 (
Washington
Post
, April 22, 2004). This kind of pressure is very damaging
to Coca-Cola and is the sort of grass-roots activism that can fight
back against Coke’s slick PR.
This
pressure also took the form of Rogers speaking as a proxy for 3,000
shares at the last Coca-Cola shareholder’s meeting. Rogers
took Coke to task for everything from the abuses in Colombia, and
other places in the world, to the striking Teamsters outside the
building, asking “Where does the greed stop?” Rogers was
assaulted by six security guards, at least one of whom turned out
to be a Wilmington police officer, though the Wilmington police
have not commented as to whether he was on city time or a hired
agent of Coke. The CEO was heard saying, “We made a mistake,”
and, indeed, they may well have. (Rogers was not arrested and is
currently looking into filing assault charges against the company.)
This also prompted a spate of articles, further getting out the
message.
The
public relations story for Coca-Cola gets worse. New York City Councilperson
Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes many Colombian Americans,
led a delegation to Colombia to investigate the claims against Coca-Cola.
The report (www.corporate-campaign. org) is a stinging condemnation.
As it says, “Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent
allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done
with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company
managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-
Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or
tacit approval. Shockingly, company officials admitted to the delegation
that they had never investigated the ties between plant managers
and paramilitaries. The company’s inaction and its ongoing
refusal to take any responsibility for the human rights crisis faced
by its workforce in Colombia demonstrates—at best—disregard
for the lives of its workers.” Monserrate will also be holding
public hearings into this case in September.
Attacking
Markets
T
hough
SINALTRAINAL was calling for a general boycott of all Coke products,
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke took a different tack. Rogers doesn’t
want, he says, “some reporter saying to me every month or two
or three ‘Your campaign isn’t working, they’re selling
more coke.’” A boycott is hard to do to so ubiquitous
a company, especially when many of their products don’t contain
the words “Coca-Cola” on them. Additionally there is the
problem of calling for a boycott on a company that has some union
workers, notably some of the delivery drivers and bottlers. Instead,
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke has targeted exclusive distribution
contracts, which allow Coca-Cola to be the only product at an institution.
Some
of their biggest successes to date have been with universities.
Three colleges in the U.S., and more internationally, have can-
celled their contracts with Coke. When Carleton College, a small
school of 2,000 students in Mississippi, held hearings on whether
or not to renew their contracts, five representatives from Coca-Cola,
including two executives, came to try to convince the students in
charge of the contract to renew. Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, in
alliance with students, also showed up to debate them. Their contract
was not renewed. There are also battles for upcoming contract renewals
at Rutgers University and the University of Massachusetts, where
Campaign to Stop Killer Coke sent 5,000 emails to every administrator,
professor, and staff member on campus.
Many
unions and labor councils have also stopped using Coke products,
including the ILWU, UAW’s biggest GM local in Detroit, and
labor councils in Vancouver and Ontario. But the big fight in the
future, the campaign claims, will be with government contracts.
There is an upcoming contract to supply soft drinks to all government
buildings in New York, which could mean hundreds of millions of
dollars. Coinciding with councilperson Monserrate’s hearings
into Coca- Cola’s connection to these abuses, Campaign to Stop
Killer Coke will be working to keep Coke from getting the contract.
Rogers even has other corporations do some of the work for him in
the form of Coke’s competitors. As he says, “We’re
reaching out to any and all of Coca-Cola’s competitors, saying
to them, ‘This is where we’re going after Coke. You get
in there and take your best shot. Take their market.’”
This will be especially effective in the New York government contract,
where Pepsi and Snapple are also vying for distribution rights.
Targeting
Investors
S
ome
of the most effective weapons in Rogers’s arsenal are his attacks
against decision makers in the company, rather than the company
as a faceless entity. Rogers explains: “You have to personalize
your campaign. Bricks, mortar, and machinery don’t make decisions
that seriously hurt workers and communities. People do. That’s
why you always have to personalize a campaign. You have to find
out who really has the power or can influence the decision to resolve
this situation. So we analyze the company, look at its board, look
at top officers. They have to be held responsible and you have to
take the fight to their doorsteps and into their boardroom.”
In
Rogers’s sights—Suntrust Banks and Warren Buffet. Campaign
to Stop Killer Coke and other union and labor groups are calling
for a boycott of and disinvestment in Suntrust Banks. Their relationship
with Coca-Cola is described by Rogers: “I’ve studied corporate
structure for years, this is the most incestuous relationship I’ve
ever seen.” Suntrust took Coke public in 1919, and there are
six “interlocks” of present and former CEO’s sitting
on each other’s boards of directors; even on Coke-FEMSA and
Panamco (the bottling companies also named in the suit). Warren
Buffet, the billionaire who was on Governor Schwarzenegger’s
campaign as an advisor and is now advising presidential hopeful
John Kerry, is the largest holder of Coca-Cola stock and is the
fifth largest stockholder in Suntrust Banks.
Fortune
M
agazine
describes Coca-Cola’s leadership as
“Coca- Cola keiretsu because it so resembles the web of interlocking
relationships typical of corporate boards in Japan” (though
they hasten to point out that this isn’t illegal). Rogers believes
that these connected groups and individuals are much more vulnerable
than the company. While Buffet may react to negative publicity,
an institution with fiduciary responsibility to its investors like
a bank is especially vulnerable. “I maintain that if there’s
enough pressure put on Suntrust, that this situation in Colombia
will be resolved very quickly.”
A
Winnable Fight
C
oca-Cola
claims that they do not own the bottling companies in Colombia,
so that even were those companies committing crimes, there would
be nothing Coke could do about it. But history disagrees.
In
the 1980s in Guatemala, many organizers trying to unionize workers
at Coca-Cola bottling plants were killed. Due to intense international
pressure, Coca-Cola, which didn’t own those bottling companies
either, threatened to pull out as their client and the situation
changed immediately. In addition to being the major client of the
plants in Colombia, Coke and its subsidiaries own nearly 50 percent
of the stock of the bottling companies and all of the series “C”
preferred stock—meaning they have veto power over any mergers
or major changes.
Rogers
doesn’t doubt that Coke will eventually buckle to the bad publicity,
but is concerned over the time frame. “We need a lot of help
in volunteers. More money means getting this resolved more quickly.”
While they say they can use help, it is an object lesson what a
staff of only a handful on no budget can accomplish.
Rogers
is certainly confident about his tactics and organization. As he
says, “I’ve had very big players in the corporate world
try to get me to work for them. I wish some of the top union leaders
treated me the way union busters do. But, unfortunately, that’s
one of the big problems within the labor movement. There’s
not a lot of real commitment or a real analysis of how you take
on the corporate and political structure. There’s a lot of
good people who can do a lot of good stuff but they don’t really
get it.”
In
1994, with the Republicans in control of Congress, Representative
Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) pushed for “corrective legislation”
targeting the kind of campaign CCI advocates and calling for a full
committee investigation. This was dropped rather unceremoniously
over free speech objections. But it’s clear that corporate-style
campaigning has major corporations worried.
Ian Werkheiser
is a teacher and freelance writer living in Japan.
