Ray Rogers (labor activist)

Last updated

Ray Rogers (born March 31, 1944, in Beverly, Massachusetts) is an American labor rights activist, labor union strategist and organizer as well as a major figure of prominence in the American labor and human rights movement. Rogers is credited with pioneering the strategy of the "corporate campaign," a tactic that has been used with success by labor unions, human rights advocates and environmental activist groups in their battles against corporations in the United States and all over the world.

Contents

The Corporate Campaign

As developed by Rogers, the corporate campaign incorporates specialized research and a power analysis of a targeted company's corporate, financial and political ties, to design specific strategies and tactics that increase economic and political pressure on the company, its top executives, directors and those institutions that can influence them. Often, the corporate campaign will focus on individual parts of a company (i.e. its directors, executives, creditors, shareholders and other funding sources) as well as urge widespread boycotts of the company's products. [1]

The ultimate goal of the corporate campaign is to force the targeted company to change its behavior and act responsibly going forward. In some cases, that would require the targeted company to recognize the rights of its workers and their union; or, to stop polluting and clean up contaminated land; and, in certain cases, to make restitution to the victims, their families and communities. Rogers's battles on behalf of labor union members against companies such as J.P. Stevens & Co., Geo. A. Hormel & Co. (see 1985–86 Hormel strike), International Paper Co., American Airlines, Inc., Campbell Soup Co. and Coca-Cola Co. led BusinessWeek magazine to describe him as a "legendary union activist". [2]

Rogers also has successfully adapted a corporate campaign approach to public sector battles between government workers' unions and politicians and government leaders, who often will target or attempt to scapegoat public sector unions. Rogers's groundbreaking campaign on behalf of New York City transit workers in 1999, for example, resulted in a new contract for employees, giving them what The New York Times called "the largest annual raises received by any of New York City's public-employee unions in more than a decade." [3]

Rogers also is the founder and director of New York City-based Corporate Campaign Inc. (CCI), which has championed labor, human rights and environmental causes for the past three decades.

Killer Coke Campaign

Rogers has directed the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke since the campaign was launched in 2003. [4] The Killer Coke Campaign is trying to hold the Coca-Cola Company, its bottlers and subsidiaries accountable for numerous acts of violence, including the kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders and members of their families, in Coca-Cola bottling factories in Colombia and Guatemala. The campaign is "the largest anticorporate campaign since the one against Nike." [5]

Under the campaign, more than 60 colleges and universities in the United States and from around the world have either terminated their purchase contracts with the Coca-Cola Co., or removed company products from their campuses altogether. More than 45 Labor unions, in the U.S. and other countries, have announced their support of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. And in July 2006, KLD removed Coca-Cola from its Broad Market Social Index (BMSI), which then led the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) to remove the stock from the CREF Social Choice Account, one of the nation's largest socially responsible investing funds.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coca-Cola</span> Cola soft drink

Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 94 in the 2024 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2023, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepsi</span> Soft drink by PepsiCo

Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo. As of 2023, Pepsi is the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long-standing rivalry in what has been called the "cola wars".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Coke</span> 1985 reformulation of Coca-Cola

New Coke was the unofficial name of a reformulation of the soft drink Coca-Cola, introduced by the Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in July 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cola wars</span> Soft drink marketing rivalry

The Cola wars are the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually-targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their flagship colas, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Beginning in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the competition escalated until it became known as the cola wars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgin Cola</span> Discontinued carbonated cola soft drink

Virgin Cola was a carbonated cola soft drink, launched in 1994. In 2009, it was discontinued in the United Kingdom, and in 2014 it was stopped being made by its final licensee, in Bangladesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fresca</span> Branded diet citrus soft drink

Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word Fresca from Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar-free diet soda, sugar sweetened versions were introduced in some markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Coca-Cola Company</span> American multinational beverage corporation

The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It manufactures, sells and markets soft drinks including Coca-Cola, other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. Its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is a component of the DJIA and the S&P 500 and S&P 100 indexes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PepsiCo</span> American multinational food and beverage corporation

PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manufacturing, distribution, and marketing of its products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company and Frito-Lay, Inc., PepsiCo has since expanded from its namesake product Pepsi Cola to an immensely diversified range of food and beverage brands. The largest and most recent acquisition was Pioneer Foods in 2020 for US$1.7 billion and prior to it was buying the Quaker Oats Company in 2001, which added the Gatorade brand to the Pepsi portfolio and Tropicana Products in 1998.

Coca-Cola Enterprises was a marketer, producer, and distributor of Coca-Cola products. It was formerly the anchor bottler for Western Europe and most of North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coca-Cola Cherry</span> Cherry-flavored cola soft drink

Coca-Cola Cherry is a cherry-flavored version of Coca-Cola. It is produced and distributed by the Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers in the United States and some international markets.

<i>American Dream</i> (film) 1990 film by Barbara Kopple

American Dream is a 1990 British-American cinéma vérité documentary film directed by Barbara Kopple and co-directed by Cathy Caplan, Thomas Haneke, and Lawrence Silk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coca-Cola Consolidated</span> Largest US independent Coca-Cola bottler

Coca-Cola Consolidated, Inc., headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the United States.

<i>Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co.</i> 2009 United States Federal Court case

Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola, 578 F.3d 1252, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of a case filed by Colombian trade union Sinaltrainal against Coca-Cola in a Miami district court, demanding monetary compensation of $500 million under the Alien Tort Claims Act for the deaths of three workers in Colombia.

Since its invention by John Stith Pemberton in 1886, criticisms of Coca-Cola as a product, and of the business practices of The Coca-Cola Company, have been significant. The Coca-Cola Company is the largest soft drink company in the world, distributing over 500 different products. Since the early 2000s, the criticism of the use of Coca-Cola products, as well as the company itself, escalated, with criticism leveled at the company over health effects, environmental issues, animal testing, economic business practices and employee issues. The Coca-Cola Company has been faced with multiple lawsuits concerning the various criticisms.

The Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) is an advocacy group with more than 85 chapters at high schools, colleges, and universities across the United States. The group is committed to bringing an end to HIV and AIDS in the U.S. and around the world, and uses a wide variety of tactics to achieve its goals, including education on campuses, letter-writing and calling campaigns to decision-makers, public demonstrations, media work, and other activist tactics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dr Pepper</span> Carbonated soft drink

Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink. It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904. It is now also sold in Europe, Asia, North and South America. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Dr Pepper is sold as an imported good. Variants include Diet Dr Pepper and, beginning in the 2000s, a line of additional flavors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coca-Cola sign</span> Sculpture in Times Square, New York City

The Coca-Cola sign is an electro-kinetic sculpture on the Two Times Square building in Times Square, Manhattan, New York City. The current sign, installed in 2017, is 68 feet (21 m) tall and 42 feet (13 m) wide, and is the latest in a line of Coca-Cola Times Square signs dating back to 1920.

H2NO was an upselling campaign by The Coca-Cola Company to dissuade consumers from ordering tap water drinks at restaurants, and to instead order more profitable soft drinks, non-carbonated beverages, or bottled water. The campaign's title, H2NO, reflects the program's purpose, which is to have customers say No to H2O, the chemical formula for water.

White Coke was a clear variant of Coca-Cola produced in the 1940s at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Like other clear colas, it had the same flavor as the original, virtually unchanged by the absence of caramel coloring.

The 1985–1986 Hormel strike was a labor strike that involved approximately 1,500 workers of the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota in the United States. The strike, beginning August 17, 1985 and lasting until September 13 of the following year, is considered one of the longest strikes in Minnesota history and ended in failure for the striking workers.

References

  1. ↑ Clem Richardson. New York Daily News , "Corporate Campaign Inc.'s Ray Rogers banks on finance to defeat big business," August 21, 2008. Last accessed: February 4, 2011.
  2. ↑ Foust, Dean; Geri Smith, Elizabeth Woyke. "'Killer Coke' Or Innocent Abroad? Controversy over anti-union violence in Colombia has colleges banning Coca-Cola". Business Week 3968: p. 46, January 23, 2006. Last accessed: February 5, 2011.
  3. ↑ Greenhouse, Steven. "THE TRANSIT SHOWDOWN: THE OVERVIEW; Transit Pact Raises Pay by 18% And May Influence Other Talks". The New York Times, December 16, 1999. Last accessed: February 11, 2011.
  4. ↑ Goodman, Amy. Democracy Now! , "Killer Coke: Activist Disrupts Coca Cola Shareholders Meeting," April 27, 2004, Last accessed: February 4, 2011.
  5. ↑ Blanding, Michael. "Coke: the New Nike". The Nation. April 11, 2005. Last accessed: February 5, 2011.
  6. ↑ American Dream at IMDb
  7. ↑ The Coca-Cola Case official website, nfb.ca, 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.