uksac - the coke-nussl saga

The Coke/NUSSL saga

NUSSL's ‘Constructive Engagement' with Coke

NUSSL (National Union of Students Services Limited) has a number of committees, one of which is the ethical and environmental (E&E) committee. This committee researches in to the ethical and environmental practices of companies, and reports these to NUSSL and its members. During our time campaigning, this is the part of NUSSL which we have been engaged with, as they have been in ‘communication' and ‘constructive dialogue' with Coca-Cola.

A brief history of our interactions with NUSSL

Our engagement began with several phone discussions between students and the head of the NUSSL Ethics & Environment Committee in early 2003. NUSSL had begun writing reports about Coca-Cola and the allegations against the company in India and Colombia (can be read on the NUSSL website, but you'll need a NUSSL liaison officer password). These were discussed over e-mail between NUSSL E&E and different members of the campaign. As far as the boycott campaigners were concerned, the NUSSL documents contained numerous serious misrepresentations of the situations in both India and Colombia , and their attention was drawn to these. Although some amendments were made, the documents remained heavily biased in favour of Coca-Cola's position on the issues (e.g. continuing to us the corporate spin term ‘biosolids' for the waste products Coke sold to Indian farmers containing highly toxic cadmium and lead).

A number of meetings were held with NUSSL E&E (e.g. 22 March 04) during which attempts were made to rectify these problems. However, eventually the relationship soured over these fundamental disagreements, and ended with campaigners and NUSSL E&E submitting two different motions at the 2004 AGM, theirs a ‘watered-down' attempt to essentially set the Coke issue aside.

The feeling among many campaigners is that NUSSL is imposing its own requirements for Coca-Cola to meet, rather than see the company address the concerns raised by the affected communities in Colombia and India . For example, they focused attention on how to avoid future violations in India, as apposed to the community demands to rectify the past and ongoing problems caused by Coca-Cola. Furthermore, we have found them all to ready to accept the claims of Coca-Cola, over what the local communities in India and Colombia say.

UKSAC has made a recent invitation to NUSSL to encourage dialogue between the different parties with the aim to encourage mutual respect and understanding for each others positions. We are going to meet with them on the 18th January