Ray Rogers (labor Activist)
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Ray Rogers (born March 31, 1944, in
Beverly, Massachusetts Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, and a suburb of Boston. The population was 42,670 at the time of the 2020 United States census. A resort, residential, and manufacturing community on the Massachusetts North Sho ...
) is an American
labor rights Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, the ...
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.


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. 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 Contaminated land contains substances in or under the land that are definitively or potentially hazardous to health or the environment. These areas often have a long history of industrial production and industrial farming. Many sites may be affect ...
; 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 ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
magazine to describe him as a "legendary union activist". 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 ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
called "the largest annual raises received by any of New York City's public-employee unions in more than a decade." Rogers also is the founder and director of New York City-base
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. 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." 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 The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA, formerly TIAA-CREF) is an American financial services organization that is a private provider of financial retirement services in the academic, resea ...
) to remove the stock from the CREF Social Choice Account, one of the nation's largest
socially responsible investing Socially responsible investing (SRI) is any investment strategy which seeks to consider financial return alongside ethical, social or environmental goals. The areas of concern recognized by SRI practitioners are often linked to environmental, ...
funds.


See also

* ''
American Dream The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the ...
'' (1990) a ''
cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ) is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about '' Kino-Pravda''. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subje ...
''
documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
directed Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), a ...
by
Barbara Kopple Barbara Kopple (born July 30, 1946) is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic French style to a modern American audience. S ...
that, among other things, illustrate Ray Rogers's organizing work and tactics used. Nevertheless, the union lost their battle against the company. * '' The Coca-Cola Case'' (2009) is a feature-length documentary film by Carmen Garcia and Germán Gutiérrez, co-produced by the
National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...
, about the legal fight and corporate campaign to hold the Coca-Cola Co. responsible for anti-union violence at the company's bottling plants in Colombia and other countries.The Coca-Cola Case official website
''nfb.ca'', 2008.


References


External links

*
Corporate Campaign, Inc.

Campaign to Stop Killer Coke

Ray Rogers
interview (MP3) on
Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long TV, radio, and Internet news program based in Manhattan and hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Ray 1944 births American trade union leaders Living people People from Beverly, Massachusetts