I’d like to refute Luke Calhoun’s arguments regarding the Coke boycott, which appeared in the April 2 Mac Weekly. His argument regarding domestic labor is one that campaign workers have been repeatedly confronted with. Yet, to my knowledge, few people at Macalester have actually personally talked to local Coke bottling plant workers, and are merely operating on the assumption that they intuitively know what those workers think. However, many of us have personally spoken with Luis Adolfo Cardona, a Colombian worker, and it is through his testimony and the testimony of other Colombian workers that we have come to understand the situation. Further, if you really support workers locally, then there are a lot of things you can do instead of bashing international workers’ rights campaigns. For example, there’s a transit strike on in the Twin Cities. Why is it that many of the students involved in the Coke boycott showed up to the strike support rally last Saturday, and yet those students who condemn the boycott on domestic labor grounds were nowhere to be seen?

There is much domestic labor support for this boycott. For instance, United Steelworkers filed a lawsuit against Coca-Cola in Atlanta on behalf of SINALTRAINAL, and it is largely through the solidarity work of American labor that we at Macalester became acquainted with the campaign. Do not underestimate workers: they are not, by and large, motivated solely by self-interest and are capable of recognizing and seeing through corporate propaganda. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that local bottling plant employees would lose their jobs due to the loss of exclusive contracts with colleges like Macalester. Coca-Cola makes most of its money in other ways, and what the company is concerned with is not the immediate loss of money, but the long-term loss of consumer loyalty through a tarnished image. However, even if workers here did end up losing their jobs as a result of the boycott, the loss of a job doesn’t compare, in my mind at least, to the loss of a life. And that is the problem that we’re facing: not only are Colombian workers losing their jobs and their livelihood, they are also losing their lives. Right now, American workers aren’t. History has shown us that what is practiced abroad by Americans (whether through the government or corporations) will eventually be practiced in the United States. Domestic workers are not safe. If we show solidarity now with workers abroad, we have a chance at stopping corporate terrorism with the sheer force of our numbers. But if we wait until they have thoroughly ravaged the rest of the world, there will be no one left to show solidarity with us when the chickens come home to roost. If you really support domestic labor, then stand shoulder to shoulder in boycotting Coca-Cola.