What you don't know can't hurt you...but it can hurt others

Commodity fetishism is the relationship between people and the object consumed, rather than the relationship to the consumer and the producer of the object. Rather impersonal, yeah? As discussed in class, in our capitalist society we think of commodities as having inherent value, rather than the value of work used to create them. In being unaware of each other (both the producer/laborers of the object and the consumer), people often have frilly little perfect ideas of the working conditions laborers often work in...otherwise known as ignorance. If we only knew half of what goes on behind the scenes of production.

Of course we are all familiar with the Nike sweatshop scandals in the 90s...(if you are not, here's a brief education), but what about our iconic, American Coca-Cola?
Killercoke.com is a campaign to stop the murders, torture, and kidnappings of union leaders dealing with the day-to-day strife and struggles at Coke bottling plants in Colombia. In July 2001, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of the union. Coca-Cola bottlers “contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces that utilize extreme violence and murdered, tortured, unlawfully detained or otherwise silenced trade union leaders,” the lawsuit states. It also notes that Colombian troops connected with the paramilitaries have trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Ga., where trainees were encouraged to torture and murder those who do “union organizing and recruiting;” pass out “propaganda in favor of workers;” and “sympathize with demonstrators or strikes” (killercoke.org). The same year the lawsuit was filed, Coke made $4 billion and paid its CEO $105 million, yet,Coke continued to ignore the atrocities happening so close to home.
The Colombian bottlers demand: 1) Coke must acknowledge the facts.
2)Public statements denouncing Anti-Union Violence. 3)Coke must agree to support a Human Rights Committee in which workers can discuss issues at the bottling plant. 4) Coke must appoint the proper authority to investigate links between Colombian management and remove such links. 5) Coke must address anti-Union impact of violence. 6)Compensation for victims. (check out more at studentsagainstsweatshops.org).

Unfortunately, this is only one of many cases claimed against Coke, another claim belonging to India: Drinking water in the vicinity of the Coke plant has been drained and the water that the natives dig deeper in order to sustain their health tastes weird (a.k.a-Coke's WASTE draining into the drinking water).

This is why active, trendsetting, politically active, and worldly NYU has become the 12th university nationally to have banned Coke on campus in 2004, (at least in the fountain drinks). Ultimately, we need to realize, as in this case, the realities of our product's conception (how things are being produced and the producer). Otherwise, we can end up having unjust situations as such!