Thursday, April 29, 2010
Coca Cola Abroad
The final post in this blog, taken posted first through my youtube account and then embeded here.
Enjoy.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Coca-Cola Responds to SINALTRAINAL
No business is immune to public opinion. Without people to buy their products businesses would serve no purpose, and therefore it is in a company’s best interest to meet their consumer’s expectation for practice and production quality. The Coca-Cola Company is aware of the accusations made against them by SINALTRAINAL, and have responded by investigating the accusations themselves as a basis for policy change.
In terms of public image alone, Coke’s most famous attempt to win back their appeal was with livepositively.com, a website that summarizes and promotes their humanitarian and environmental efforts around the world. For more information on this program see http://www.livepositively.com/#/home
A program like livepositively.com can easily be seen as an attempt to spin criticism away from the company with fancy marketing, however. Knowing that it would take more than just a website to win back a positive public image, the Coca-Cola Company requested an investigation by the United Nations labor panel of their Colombian bottling plants in April, 2006. As a third party, humanitarian organization, the United Nations (at first glance) is the perfect group to conduct this investigation in an unbiased, objective manner. Upon closer examination, however, the investigation does not hold up under scrutiny.
A link to the official report from this labor panel is provided at the bottom of this post. The first thing that you will likely notice as you read it is the neutrality of the language used. In my opinion this is paramount to providing good evidence in a case such as this without inspiring bias in the reader. There are not many other positive things to be said about this report, at least as far as addressing the primary issue is concerned. All things considered, this is a direct report of the working conditions within the plant that ignores any possibility of the violence towards trade and union leaders that has been reported since 1991. Since this is what initiated the first SINALTRAINAL lawsuit and spurred the killercoke movement, the failure to acknowledge its existence is a suspicious aspect of the report.
The significance of this failure was not lost on other evaluators of the SINALTRAINAL v. Coca-Cola lawsuit. The primary criticism of the report’s neutrality has been that the labor panel’s United States delegate was Ed Potter, who is also the director of global relations for the Coca-Cola Company. To make matters worse, this report was filed late due to a delay in the final investigation. Though there are many reasons why this could be the case, one possibility is that extra time was needed to make the report appear neutral, either because the evidence itself appeared biased or because members of the panel were not able to reach agreement on the issues.
I am not satisfied by Coca-Cola’s efforts to investigate the allegations made against them. The bottom line is that third party organizations do not answer to any authority other than the person who is hiring them. They are able to set their own quality and ethical restrictions on their service. In order for me to be convinced that Coca-Cola had nothing to do with the violence occurring in Colombia there must to be an investigation conducted by a US government organization.
http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/evaluation%20mission%20Coca-cola%20bottling%20plants%20in%20Colombia%20(2).pdf
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
In terms of public image alone, Coke’s most famous attempt to win back their appeal was with livepositively.com, a website that summarizes and promotes their humanitarian and environmental efforts around the world. For more information on this program see http://www.livepositively.com/#/home
A program like livepositively.com can easily be seen as an attempt to spin criticism away from the company with fancy marketing, however. Knowing that it would take more than just a website to win back a positive public image, the Coca-Cola Company requested an investigation by the United Nations labor panel of their Colombian bottling plants in April, 2006. As a third party, humanitarian organization, the United Nations (at first glance) is the perfect group to conduct this investigation in an unbiased, objective manner. Upon closer examination, however, the investigation does not hold up under scrutiny.
A link to the official report from this labor panel is provided at the bottom of this post. The first thing that you will likely notice as you read it is the neutrality of the language used. In my opinion this is paramount to providing good evidence in a case such as this without inspiring bias in the reader. There are not many other positive things to be said about this report, at least as far as addressing the primary issue is concerned. All things considered, this is a direct report of the working conditions within the plant that ignores any possibility of the violence towards trade and union leaders that has been reported since 1991. Since this is what initiated the first SINALTRAINAL lawsuit and spurred the killercoke movement, the failure to acknowledge its existence is a suspicious aspect of the report.
The significance of this failure was not lost on other evaluators of the SINALTRAINAL v. Coca-Cola lawsuit. The primary criticism of the report’s neutrality has been that the labor panel’s United States delegate was Ed Potter, who is also the director of global relations for the Coca-Cola Company. To make matters worse, this report was filed late due to a delay in the final investigation. Though there are many reasons why this could be the case, one possibility is that extra time was needed to make the report appear neutral, either because the evidence itself appeared biased or because members of the panel were not able to reach agreement on the issues.
I am not satisfied by Coca-Cola’s efforts to investigate the allegations made against them. The bottom line is that third party organizations do not answer to any authority other than the person who is hiring them. They are able to set their own quality and ethical restrictions on their service. In order for me to be convinced that Coca-Cola had nothing to do with the violence occurring in Colombia there must to be an investigation conducted by a US government organization.
http://www.laborrights.org/sites/default/files/publications-and-resources/evaluation%20mission%20Coca-cola%20bottling%20plants%20in%20Colombia%20(2).pdf
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
Friday, April 9, 2010
15 References
1. http://www.killercoke.org/
-Killer Coke has provided a good range of general information regarding the Coca-Cola Company’s activity in Columbia. There is a concise summary of Coke’s alleged crimes, but there is a heavy bias against the company, and this must be kept in mind as you view the website.
2. http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/coca_cola.htm
-The above link takes you to an abbreviated history of Coca-Cola, both the product and the company. It is by no means in depth, but it does give important dates and basic information that is useful for gaining perspective on the company’s origins and growth.
3. http://www.fromwhatiheard.com/2007/03/14/the-effects-drinking-a-coke-has-on-your-body/
-This website is not particularly academic, but it does give a good, semi-scientific outline of Coca-Cola’s effects on the human body, which are distressing and numerous. Though it does not help with the Coca-Cola v. SINALTRAINAL debate, it does provide a different perspective against Coca-Cola’s “feel good” advertising campaign.
4. http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp
-The Coca-Cola website provides an unabridged glimpse into their ideal public image. A lot if what I saw on here influenced my thinking about how the company wants us to view them.
5. http://www.mycokerewards.com/home.do
-Another glimpse of Coca-Cola from behind enemy lines. The MyCokeRewards program allows buyers to cash in on extra benefit for their products. Though again not essential to the SINALTRAINAL debate, it’s another interesting look at what Coke provides its customers outside of the product itself.
6. http://www.livepositively.com/#/home
-This website was crucial to my blog on public opinion and how it affects the reaction to a company’s practices. Many of the humanitarian and philanthropic actions that Coke claims to sponsor here are in direct contradiction to accusations made against them by groups like SINALTRAINAL.
7. http://www.sinaltrainal.org/
-Once you run this page through a Google translator it provides one of the most complete and useful databases of Coke’s crimes, as collected by the SINALTRAINAL organization. I have come back here numerous times for dates, lists of martyrs within the organization, and a straight from the source voice of the workers in Columbia.
8. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/162/28046.html
-This article gives a good overview of Coca-Cola’s presence in India. The dates and figures provided here give it a solid, scientific background that lends veracity to the article.
9. http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2003/communitiesprotest.html
-The article provides another outline of Coca-Cola’s presence in India, though this section is specific to Tamil Nadu. The claims concern exploitation of the water system in a drought ridden region, which is an obvious argument against the “water conversation efforts” claimed by livepositively.com.
10. http://www.waronwant.org/news/campaigns-news/15153-coca-cola-drinking-the-world-dry/
-This article provides more information about Coca-Cola and water conservation, though this one takes a broader stance than the other two, referring to multiple countries that have Coca-Cola bottling plants on their soil. The visual images lend a personality to the arguments.
11. http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2005/India-Coca-Cola-Pepsi14mar05.htm
-Another article on water tables and India, though this one provides information on the history of the Coca-Cola Company in India, from when the company was first voted off of Indian soil in 1977 to their return in 1993.
12. http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/en_US/?
-Though it is a different company, I have referenced Nike several times in my blog, comparing the company’s public image with Coca-Cola’s and using this as a starting point to compare the public reaction to each company’s humanitarian violations.
13. http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pdf/2004-1-0085.pdf
-A highly detailed and academic perspective on Coca-Cola in India, this file provides numerous quality references and facts about the company’s presence in the country, as well as its response to the recent college campus boycotts.
14. http://www.labournet.net/world/0404/coke1.html
-Another high quality document, this is a collection of the letters of protest sent from SINALTRAINAL to the Coca-Cola Company after the alleged attacks in Columbia. This was one of the first documents that I found related to the issue.
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola
-Though there is a stigma against Wikipedia in the academic community, all of the dates in the grid at the bottom of the page are correct, so I use it as a reference point when I am completing a blog and a fact slips my mind.
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
-Killer Coke has provided a good range of general information regarding the Coca-Cola Company’s activity in Columbia. There is a concise summary of Coke’s alleged crimes, but there is a heavy bias against the company, and this must be kept in mind as you view the website.
2. http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/coca_cola.htm
-The above link takes you to an abbreviated history of Coca-Cola, both the product and the company. It is by no means in depth, but it does give important dates and basic information that is useful for gaining perspective on the company’s origins and growth.
3. http://www.fromwhatiheard.com/2007/03/14/the-effects-drinking-a-coke-has-on-your-body/
-This website is not particularly academic, but it does give a good, semi-scientific outline of Coca-Cola’s effects on the human body, which are distressing and numerous. Though it does not help with the Coca-Cola v. SINALTRAINAL debate, it does provide a different perspective against Coca-Cola’s “feel good” advertising campaign.
4. http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp
-The Coca-Cola website provides an unabridged glimpse into their ideal public image. A lot if what I saw on here influenced my thinking about how the company wants us to view them.
5. http://www.mycokerewards.com/home.do
-Another glimpse of Coca-Cola from behind enemy lines. The MyCokeRewards program allows buyers to cash in on extra benefit for their products. Though again not essential to the SINALTRAINAL debate, it’s another interesting look at what Coke provides its customers outside of the product itself.
6. http://www.livepositively.com/#/home
-This website was crucial to my blog on public opinion and how it affects the reaction to a company’s practices. Many of the humanitarian and philanthropic actions that Coke claims to sponsor here are in direct contradiction to accusations made against them by groups like SINALTRAINAL.
7. http://www.sinaltrainal.org/
-Once you run this page through a Google translator it provides one of the most complete and useful databases of Coke’s crimes, as collected by the SINALTRAINAL organization. I have come back here numerous times for dates, lists of martyrs within the organization, and a straight from the source voice of the workers in Columbia.
8. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/162/28046.html
-This article gives a good overview of Coca-Cola’s presence in India. The dates and figures provided here give it a solid, scientific background that lends veracity to the article.
9. http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2003/communitiesprotest.html
-The article provides another outline of Coca-Cola’s presence in India, though this section is specific to Tamil Nadu. The claims concern exploitation of the water system in a drought ridden region, which is an obvious argument against the “water conversation efforts” claimed by livepositively.com.
10. http://www.waronwant.org/news/campaigns-news/15153-coca-cola-drinking-the-world-dry/
-This article provides more information about Coca-Cola and water conservation, though this one takes a broader stance than the other two, referring to multiple countries that have Coca-Cola bottling plants on their soil. The visual images lend a personality to the arguments.
11. http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2005/India-Coca-Cola-Pepsi14mar05.htm
-Another article on water tables and India, though this one provides information on the history of the Coca-Cola Company in India, from when the company was first voted off of Indian soil in 1977 to their return in 1993.
12. http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/en_US/?
-Though it is a different company, I have referenced Nike several times in my blog, comparing the company’s public image with Coca-Cola’s and using this as a starting point to compare the public reaction to each company’s humanitarian violations.
13. http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/pdf/2004-1-0085.pdf
-A highly detailed and academic perspective on Coca-Cola in India, this file provides numerous quality references and facts about the company’s presence in the country, as well as its response to the recent college campus boycotts.
14. http://www.labournet.net/world/0404/coke1.html
-Another high quality document, this is a collection of the letters of protest sent from SINALTRAINAL to the Coca-Cola Company after the alleged attacks in Columbia. This was one of the first documents that I found related to the issue.
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola
-Though there is a stigma against Wikipedia in the academic community, all of the dates in the grid at the bottom of the page are correct, so I use it as a reference point when I am completing a blog and a fact slips my mind.
Click HERE to open the feedback tool.
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