NYU Bans Coca-Cola on Campus
Friday, December 09, 2005
New York, NY –
Starting today, all Coca-Cola products will be removed from the NYU campus. Some students have been part of an international campaign against Coca-Cola's practices in its bottling plants in Colombia. Reporter Wilma Consul has more.
REPORTER: It's going to take about a week to take away all Coke products off campus. This includes Minute Maid fruit juices, Dasani water, Sprite, Fanta, Nestea, Odwalla and Powerade.
NYU's All University Senate, which includes students, faculty and administrators, voted on the ban last month. After Coca-cola said that it could not meet yesterday's deadline to submit to an independent probe, NYU went ahead with the ban.
The allegations against Coke go as far back as 1989. Labor groups claim that workers in Colombian bottling plants have been threatened, and some were killed for joining a union. They allege Coke has been complicit with not protecting its employees from paramilitary intimidation.
Coke has denied all allegations. In 2004, a Florida court dismissed Coca-Cola as one of the defendants in a case filed by an American labor union on behalf of slain Colombian union leaders.
NYU is not the first school in the area to ban Coke products. Rutgers University and Saint Peters Prep in New Jersey and the Union Theological Seminary in the City all have done away with Coke products.
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