STMSU gives up Coke money for second year

I wrote this last year, but it got picked up the Uwatch.ca, which is a group "Advocating for universities in the public interest." I thought it was very cool when I found it, which was an accident. So here it is:

Saskatchewan students say no thanks to Coke dough – again

We have The Sheaf at the University of Saskatchewan to thank for this story about the student council at St. Thomas More College who are starting to make a tradition of declining some easy-but-sleazy money from an exclusivity deal the campus-wide student union cut with Coke in 1998:

STMSU gives up Coke money for second year
by Crystal Clarke
The St. Thomas More Students’ Union (STMSU) has once again rejected the money owed to them from a controversial deal the USSU had made in 1998. The students’ society revisited last year’s council’s decision to decline the allotted $1400 and decided this year will be no different. In total, with the money carried over from last year, the group has declined $2800.
“Last year, the Campus Ministry gave [the STMSU] a package that came to them from Development and Peace about the bad business practices and the terrible things that Coke was doing in other countries,”said Adam Day, STMSU Vice President of Academics. “We decided as a group that it was wrong for us to take money from a company that would do that kind of thing.”

Based on this information, a Coca Cola committee was formed to do research in order to help the STMSU council make an informed decision about the money. This year another group was set up to take on the same task, but also to raise awareness to students about the injustices that Coca Cola are doing.

“We also felt it would be disrespectful to the previous year’s council if we went against their decision to not take the money and decided to take the money,” said Brennan Richardson, STMSU Member at Large. This is something that this committee is trying to change. “If we would have taken it this year, we would have to take last year’s money as well,” noted Alice Collins, another STMSU Member at Large that sits on the Coke committee.

The majority of the STMSU council felt that it would have been hypocritical to take Coke’s money since STM is a Catholic college and follows a certain human rights and social justice agenda. “We have to find a balance between serving students and representing the values inherent to the Catholic college that we represent,” said Richardson.

In terms of taking the money and donating it to good causes, like the suggested Tsunami relief fund, they decided against that. “In a way it would only be helping Coca Cola because thatús the way a major corporation like Coca Cola presents a good public image is they advertise their charity contributions,” Richardson said. “In fact, the amount of money they actually put into these things is minimal for them. [This money] is ‘peanuts’ compared to how much they make. It’s not that they have a humanitarian effort, they are just trying to convince the public that they are an environmentally friendly and community-friendly corporation.”

One example of the committee’s research was based on water-issues. “There is also issues with Coke going into certain areas in a Third World country, setting up on a stream or body of water and then using that water for bottling. The water that ends up getting to the people is the waste. So people are getting seriously sick and they are selling Coke cheaper than water, to get people to drink their product,” said Day. “The best-known example of this is Kerala, India. It was reported by BBC, talking about a farming community in Kerala, where Coke established a bottling plant. They dried up the water-bed. All the arable land was useless,” added Richardson.

“By us not taking the money, we may not be serving our students as well as we possibly can, but we are representing their ethics and values,” said Toma. “We’re not the only group on campus or in Canada that has declined their money,” added Day. “Hopefully we can apply pressure the Board of Directors to not sign the Coke deal again,” said Richardson.

As for the future of the STMSU and the Coca-Cola issue, “It’s a stance that we would like to see keep going, even with [the STMSU’s] inevitable turnover,” said Day.

The group hopes that a permanent committee will be put in place to lobby against Coke. A goal for the group is to increase awareness about Coke and serve as a model student group against the company.

Posted: 2005-02-02 033, 2005, 05:%i Wed
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