Belching Out the Devil

by Mark Thomas

  ‘We get it,’ joins Ed Potter.

  ‘We understand that he was an employee. We understand that he was shot there…It’s a very difficult area, it was a very difficult time. If we can come to some resolution, we’d like to help that family and move on.’

  But it quickly descends from that compassionate line into the usual company statements, hiding in the mire of the ‘Coca-Cola system’. Ed Potter describes the dead as men who ‘were not current or ever Coca-Cola employees’. He parrots the company mantra, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the refusal of the Company to acknowledge they have a responsibility over ‘the Coca-Cola system’ is the very thing that gets them into so much grief. People don’t much care for the lawyerly lines of separation between legal entities - if your name is on the label you have got the responsibility.

  When I mention the breakdown in negotiations between the company and Sinaltrainal, Ed Potter takes a breath and realigns the furrows on his brow. ‘All I will say is, and this is a personal opinion - I honestly don’t believe they want to resolve this.’

  ‘You don’t think that Sinaltrainal wants to resolve it? Why not?’ I say incredulously.

  ‘That’s something I…It’s a personal opinion, I frankly…I mean as soon as it goes on that recorder…’ He nods at the digital recorder, implying he doesn’t want to talk of this publicly. But it seems that Ed Potter thinks a group of people who collect death threats like Nectar points and have been specifically targeted for organising workers in Coca-Cola bottlers want to prolong the situation.

  Alongside other campaigners, Ray Rogers of Stop Killer Coke has caused the company some considerable discomfort. To Ray, arguing comes as natural as breathing and the idea of just allowing Ed Potter to get past without lambasting him is just too much for Ray to bear so he strides over to us, calling out ‘The ILO investigation is a scam!’

  Let me explain the back story here. The International Labor Organisation is a UN body that exists to promote labour and human rights. It is made up of representatives from government, employers and trade unions.4 After coming under pressure from the University of Michigan student body (the folk who put pressure on for the TERI report in India) Coca-Cola agreed to approach the ILO with the International Union of Foodworkers to ask that they conduct an assessment of workplace practices in Coke’s bottling plants in Colombia. The ILO announced their intention to do so on 24 March 2006.5

  The problem with this is that the Company have somewhat used the promised ILO assessment as a fig leaf to hide behind when questions are raised about the assassinations, when in fact the ILO is only assessing current labour practices and will not consider the assassinations or any of the allegations of complicity by the bottling plant managers. Which is why Ray is claiming, ‘The ILO investigation is a scam. You know it, I know it, The Coca-Cola Company knows it.’

  ‘I absolutely disagree’ says Ed Potter emphatically.

  ‘It’s a scandal,’ decries Ray raising his hands to the heavens, oblivious to the fact that the passing shareholders are turning to stare at him. ‘There is no investigation being done.’

  Ed Potter replies, ‘Well we’ve never represented that the ILO was going to do an investigation.’

  This is an unfortunate thing to say, as inside the annual meeting, just metres away from where we are standing, staff are issuing a printed company statement on Colombia, in which The Coca-Cola Company describes the ILO assessment as an ‘investigation’ on three occasions in five lines of text. This, they claim is ‘fulfilling our commitment to an independent, impartial third-party investigation and evaluation,’ though it fails to mention Ed Potter is the US Employer Delegate on the ILO. The body that just happens to be conducting this particular ‘independent and impartial’ assessment.6

  Unfortunately Ed Potter is also contradicted by his boss the current chairman and former CEO, Neville Isdell, who said at the Company Annual Meeting for shareholders in 2006:

  ‘We have a document. From the ILO signed by the ILO…We have a document. We have an agreement and they are going to investigate past and prior practices…We think we have gone to the most credible people that can possibly be found in this world to look at what has happened in Colombia.’7

  Just to further clarify matters I talked to the General Secretary of the International Union of Foodworkers , Ron Oswald - this is the person who negotiated with Coke and then the ILO to get the assessment. Ron reacted to Neville Isdell’s statement saying, ‘Well, he was wrong, and they know he was wrong, but clearly once that cat’s out the bag, that cat’s out the bag. Our proposal to the ILO was very clear: we did not ask them to do an investigation into criminal or murderous events in the 1990s…I don’t think they’ve got the competence to do that, frankly.’

  In case there is any lingering doubt Ron Oswald says ‘there are still calls for Coke to agree to an independent investigation of those incidents and that’s something we thought Coke should have agreed to many years ago.’ So obviously the ILO assessment is not that ‘independent investigation’.

  There was never going to be an investigation into past practices of Coke bottling plants in Colombia by the ILO. So I asked Coca-Cola if they would publish or let me see the document Neville Isdell alleges the ILO had given the Company, to see how such a such a prominent captain of industry could be so confused. After all it is probably not a good idea to tell untruths and give false information to shareholders at an annual meeting. To my surprise the Company reacted positively to my question to see the ILO letter and invited me to their HQ in Atlanta providing a private jet with in-flight entertainment from an acoustic set by Joni Mitchell…OK, I’m making it up, but they started it. They ignored my question.

  Mood music is piped into the Hotel du Pont rendering the lobby’s grand piano as just a symbol of good taste. But saunter past this soundless wooden box of strings and hammers, past the check-in desk, between the pair of welcoming signs and their attendant police officers, and at the bottom of the carpeted stairs and their polished handrails stands the company fridges in all their glory, lit up like a petrol station at night. These are the new HFC-Free fridges, which the company calls Climate Friendly Coolers. Each is packed with Coca-Cola products in branded blocks and shareholders are invited to enjoy the company’s produce. I don’t want to take anything out of their fridge, though I do wish I had a bottle of Big Cola to put in there. The meeting hall is cavernous and ornate, with two chandeliers, all brass and glass, hanging from the ceiling. The columned walls are painted with flowers, flutes and fat cherubs dancing and the alcoves house gilt-framed mirrors; around these edges staff and plainclothes police officers stand in an obvious display of authority.

  Walking into the hall I immediately bump into the friendly smile of B Wardlaw. B Wardlaw dresses in grey tracksuit bottoms, trainers and a driving jacket which, along with his scarecrow grey crop and Southern gentleman-style goatee beard, give him the appearance of Colonel Sanders with a hangover. But despite his appearance B Wardlaw is heir to a large number of Coca-Cola shares which he uses to help finance a homeless shelter in Atlanta: 1,000 people drop by in the day, 600 sleep there at night. The homeless repay this charity by giving B fashion advice, which he appears to have accepted today. He comes from an old Atlanta family and his grandfather was involved in the financing of The Coca-Cola Company so B knows many of the board and the Atlanta elite.

  The first time I met B was outside of Washington. I had heard of him through a network of anti-Coca-Cola campaigners, who helped set up our meeting. I had been told to get a train to Tacoma Park and phone his number.

  ‘Hi is that B Wardlaw?’

  ‘Mr Thomas?’ I heard a Southern gentleman’s drawl.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Walk along the platform. Come down the escalator not the elevator. Walk through the barrier…’

  ‘And…’

  Almost in a parody of southern manners he said, ‘Ah will make myself know to you.’ And then he hung up.

  I did was what I was t
old and on leaving the station B popped out of a coffeeshop doorway and shot a wave at me. He was dressed much like he always does and was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the slogan ‘Celebrate Freedom: Read a Banned Book!’ During that first meeting I asked him what he thought The Coca-Cola Company should do to address the many issues it faced and he had replied in his charming drawl, ‘Stop making Coca-Cola.’ He was serious, ‘I don’t think it is a good product and we shouldn’t be conditioning children to it.’

  ‘But this is the source of your money which goes to the shelter…’

  He shakes his head with a smile, ‘I know it’s a paradox,’ then with mock seriousness he confides, ‘I call myself the Coca-Cola anarchist.’

  ‘Seriously, what should the Company do?’

  ‘Well, when I mentioned the Colombia issue to people involved in the...er, shall we say, upper echelons of the company,’ he said with an edge of irony in his voice, ‘they said “we just sell the syrup - it’s the bottlers”.’

  ‘That is the standard line…’

  ‘Well, we should take responsibility or we should not do business.’

  B Wardlaw is here in Delaware to propose a shareholder motion that the company should create a Board Committee on Human Rights, which would consider and advise on the consequences of its actions on these issues, including sponsoring the Olympics in China.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit next to you?’ I ask.

  ‘I would be honoured,’ he says.

  A company’s annual meeting is one of the rare times activists and opponents of a company get the chance to question the board and all they have to do is buy one single share to gain admittance. So the room is beginning to feel like the gathering of the clans, just behind me is an official from Amnesty International who wants to second B’s proposal; next to him is a representative from Reporters Without Borders. Ray Rogers has entered with Lew Freidman, though they spilt up and sit in different sections of the room as they stand more chance of both getting called on to speak if they are apart. Behind Ray is a contingent of Tibetans who have just seen the brutal repression of democracy demonstrations by China, the host nation for the Olympics and Coke’s most precious emerging market. Teamsters walk into the room smartly dressed but still managing to swagger like they are part of Rocky Balboa’s training camp. There are Campaign for Corporate Accountability folk dotted around, plus the environmental and human rights groups like the Polaris Institute and Canadian water rights campaigners. Amit Srivastava is back from India and looks suitably unimpressed by his surroundings, though he nips over to say hello with a hug. There are even a couple of nuns who have come along to protest Coke’s policies.

  Most meetings of this sort start with a chairman clearing his throat, welcoming the room and calling the session to order. Coke’s begins with a hymn, the lights go down and they play one of their adverts - the ultimate song of praise to the product. A video screens the commercial in which enormous inflatable figures from a parade break away from their tow ropes and a cartoon toddler and a superhero dog do battle in the skies for the prize of a large inflatable bottle of Coca-Cola. B Wardlaw tucks a conspiratorial head in my direction and in his Southern lilt chuckles, ‘They would appear to be over-carbonated…too much gas.’

  The ad finishes, the lights come up with the applause of the room and Neville Isdell, the outgoing CEO, rises to the podium.

  In the world of CEOs some are born elegant, some achieve elegance and some have elegance thrust upon them. Isdell falls into the latter category. Strip him of the suit and he would look like a balding referee at a Sunday morning football match. ‘Good morning, and welcome to The Coca-Cola Company’s 2008 annual meeting...’

  Isdell is the model of competence, delivering his opening remarks and then introducing the board members who are up for re-election. These folks sit at the front of the meeting in a cordoned-off area for executives with the riff raff kept firmly at bay, a sort of mini Dubai. As Isdell calls out their names in turn they stand and wave to the assembled mass behind them. There is a director of Delta Air Lines brandishing his hand in the air like it doesn’t quite belong to him, the President of Hearst magazines graciously gesturing and a chap touted as the outsider for the vice-president’s slot on the Obama ticket grinning like he has messed himself.

  Muthar Kent,8 the incoming CEO, sits next to his outgoing counterpart. As Isdell is tall and lean, so Kent is squat and square, between them they possess the classic shape of a double act.

  Muthar Kent takes his turn at the podium and says as CEO elect he is ‘humbled’ and ‘honoured to be part of this great legacy…’ and thunders that we all have ‘good reason to be excited’ in the future of the company. ‘I believe,’ he cries from the podium, ‘there is no better packaged goods consumer business to be in, today or in the future, than the non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage industry.’ It is noticeable that he never refers to Coca-Cola as ‘pop’, ‘fizzy pop’, ‘sodas’ or even ‘carbonated sodas’ - Muthar Kent describes Coca-Cola as ‘sparkling beverages’.

  His speech is littered with sentences like ‘Our sparkling beverage growth is achieving its highest rates in almost a decade!’ and ‘Sparkling beverages are the oxygen of our company.’ In fact he uses the phrase ‘sparkling beverages’ eight times so he obviously isn’t taking the ‘golden stream’. It is out with the old soda or pop with its image of sugar-laden fizz and in with the calorie-free phrase ‘sparkling beverages.’

  But it is Isdell’s speech following Kent’s, that proves to be the more intriguing, and he begins by saying, ‘We’re transforming our business very simply because the world in which we operate has changed. Our planet and its resources are facing increasing pressures.’ As an opening it is standard fare for business leaders to stress changes they are bringing to keep the company at the top of its game, but he continues, ‘We have a presence in people’s lives that reaches beyond that magical moment of providing that simple moment of refreshment. We’re also an employer, a business partner, a part of the community, a global citizen; and I believe we must play our role in supporting sustainable communities.’

  Having just seen some of those communities that have not been sustained by Coke, I crane my neck around the room searching out other small scowls of disbelief. However, it becomes clear that alongside the business journalists, the investment fund managers and the vested interest groups there are ordinary shareholders here, not rich people just folk with a few dollars and a will to invest. Behind me sits a family on a day out. On one side of the family group sits the father, in a green check shirt, his back bolt upright with his hands on his knees. At the other end of the line a twelve-year old-boy wearing a baseball hat sits slumped dangling his rucksack between his knees. In between them is the mother, in her forties, knitting a red, white and blue jumper.

  ‘Last year,’ says Isdell, ‘we set a very aspirational target: a goal of becoming entirely water neutral in our operations on a global basis…In the past, some of you have expressed some concern about our business in India that primarily revolved around water and water use. I can tell you not only have we listened, but we’ve taken action. For starters, there are over three hundred rainwater harvesting structures across seventeen states in India.’ This is Isdell in full CEO as Indiana Jones mode, leading a company that faces criticism and triumphs. From here he deftly moves through the emotions of contrition, struggle and hope.

  ‘People have talked about our transparency in India, so we agreed to an independent assessment of our water management [by TERI],’ says Isdell, underlining the idea that the company has risen to the charges of its critics. ‘There were some areas that they identified where we can make some improvements; these were just recommendations, and of course we will proceed with those.’ Without scrutiny this looks like a company that have looked deep into their corporate soul admitted imperfection and embraced change. The knitting mum is still working on patriotic woollen wear but the checked shirt dad is nodding vigorously in appreciation at the scale
of Coke’s challenge.

  However, with scrutiny Isdell’s comments reveal a sleight of hand and quite a good one too. The improvements the company is going to make are small ones, relating to waste water improvements and compliance issues. These may be necessary but they are not the major recommendation of the report, which is to shut the plant down. So the inclusion and acknowledgment of some of the TERI report’s criticisms is a masterly stroke, humbly admitting to minor errors while ignoring the major indictments.

  Isdell lunges into the climax of his speech. ‘The challenges facing our planet are too urgent and complex for governments alone, business alone, or NGOs alone to solve. Working together, we can create a multiplier effect that helps build sustainable communities and addresses the issues of our planet.’ He is a man with a mission going beyond the mere niggles of a few critics and now set to solve the problems of the world. ‘All the efforts I have talked about are “nice” things to do, but we are not doing them just because they are nice. We’ve done them because they’re the steps that we must take to earn a profit and to return a profit to you, our shareholders.’