Coke and Pepsi criticized in India and the Killer Coke campaign

Coca-Cola along with Pepsi came under attack with a recent report by an Indian NGO that claims that the pesticide level in both Coke and Pepsi products in India is on the rise.

"samples from 12 states showed that Pepsi products contained 30 times more pesticides than found in 2003" along with "Coke samples [that] had 25 times the amount of pesticides found three years ago."

Coca-Cola has become increasingly underfire for its ethical standards around the world.

A grassroots political campaign called Killer Coke is burgeoning internationally in order to hold Coca-Cola accountable for the profits it makes off of its Columbian Bottling Plants that contract paramillitary units to target and assasinate trade union leaders of SINALTRAINAL (National Union of Food Industry Workers) along with the environmental damage it wreaks in India. College students across the US and in Canada, the UK, and Ireland are getting involved by calling for divestment of Coke products on campus. Over 20 schools have removed Coke products from their campus including schools like NYU, Oberlin College, and Oxford University and 151 schools are involved in the Killer Coke campaign. If you are interested in bringing this campaign to your own college campus, I urge you to do so. United Students Against Sweatshops wrote a a manual to get you started. Labor unions in the US and Europe have also picked up the cause against Coke.

My own school, the University of Michigan, had temporarily suspended its contract with Coke as a result of the Killer Coke campaign but U of M Chief Financial Officer Tim Slottow decided on his own to re-new the contract without even discussing it with the students. This has been a source of anger among student activists on campus including myself.