‘As stockholders filed into the room in April 2005, news
hadn't been good for Coke, which has steadily lost market share to rivals.
Investors were eager for reassurance from CEO Neville Isdell, a patrician
Irishman who had recently assumed the top job. Few in the room, however, were
prepared for what happened next. As Isdell stood at the podium, two long lines
formed at the microphones. When he opened the floor, the first to speak was Ray
Rogers, a veteran union organizer and head of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke.
"I want to know what [Coke is] going to do to regain the trust and
credibility in order to stop the growing movement worldwide...banning Coke
products," boomed the 62-year-old. 

That was just the beginning of a
ninety-minute slugfest that the Financial Times later said: "felt more
like a student protest rally" than a stockholders' meeting. One after
another, students, labor activists and environmentalists blasted Coke's
international human rights record. Many focused on Colombia, where Coke has
been accused of conspiring with paramilitary death squads to torture and kill
union activists. Others highlighted India, where Coke has allegedly polluted
and depleted water supplies. Still others called the company to task for causing
obesity through aggressive marketing to children. 

Coke Is Death