UL Coke Boycott falls short

limerick | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Sunday April 17, 2005 20:03 by St.John

Last Thursday the referendum on Boycotting Coke in the University of Limerick fell short.

The required quorum of 20% of the students, or 1,776 wasn't reached, with roughly 1,100 turning out. We also lost the vote, from 443 Yes votes to 659.
In the aftermath, this loss was put down to the fact that many of the biggest sports clubs in the University get up to €20,000 per annum from Coke or other products owned by the company. Unfortunately, they chose to put this ahead of the issues the human rights abuses in Colombia which served as the basis for the Boycott.
Nevertheless, we feel that raising the debate in the University at least got people thinking a bit, and brought the issue to the fore in the minds of the student body in arguably one of the more conservative campuses in the country. So, onwards and upwards, hopefully we can run the referendum again at a future date, and convince the students of the value of life and liberty over cash and cola :-)