Coke ban upheld

4/17, 3:45 p.m. -- The University Senate has rejected a resolution to lift NYU's 27-month embargo on Coca-Cola products today, rejecting a proposal from the senate's Public Affairs Committee to rescind the ban by just five votes.

The ban was enacted in December 2005 to prohibit the sale of Coca-Cola products on campus until the company agrees to an independent assessment of its labor practices in Colombia. In 2001, a Colombian trade union filed suit against Coca-Cola, alleging that it sponsored the murder of several union leaders at its Colombian bottling factory.

On Monday, WSN reported that PAC chairman Arthur Tannenbaum would recommend to the senate a repeal of the ban.

In February, Tannenbaum said he received confirmation that Coca-Cola had agreed to an investigation by the International Labour Organization, a division of the United Nations that focuses on labor issues.

But at today's senate meeting, students, faculty, and administrators alike sat poised at their places as they listened intently to a heated debate of the controversies surrounding the Coke ban.

In his committee report, Tannenbaum urged senators to focus on the specific language of the existing ban and said the company had met the 2005 resolution's conditions, which was to permit a third-party assessment of its labor practices in Colombia.

"The intention of the ban is to have Coke agree to have a responsible third party source conduct an investigation of its business practices in Colombia," Tannenbaum told the senate.

"The Public Affairs Committee believes we have succeeded in what the purpose was, which was to put Coca-Cola in the spotlight. NYU is not a big consumer of Coca-Cola, or any other particular company or its goods, but we are the media capital of the world and I do believe, sincerely, that by us bringing up Coca-Cola and their ignoring incidents that happened in Colombia, we have put the pressure on Coca-Cola."

Additional reporting by Jane C. Timm. Sergio Hernandez is a staff writer. E-mail him at university@nyunews.com.