Berkeley’s Drive to Boycott Could Leave City on Empty

The boycott-crazy city of Berkeley is learning a tough lesson: It may be hard to drive the moral high road when you can’t buy gas.

By the time the City Council adjourns tonight, there probably will be no brand-name fuel politically correct enough to power the city’s police cars, street sweepers, garbage trucks, mayor’s car or any other official vehicle.

The first city in America to boycott companies doing business with South Africa--and a municipality that officially refers to manholes as “sewer openings” to avoid sexism--Berkeley now is poised to boycott all companies doing business in Nigeria because of alleged human rights violations and a military dictatorship there.

Shell, Chevron and Mobil Oil are among the firms conducting business in that troubled African nation. Because of earlier boycott votes, the city already shuns companies doing business with Myanmar--also known as Burma--and Tibet, which puts oil giants Unocal, Arco and Texaco on the lengthening list of hands-off corporations. Although unofficial, the city also says “uh-uh” to buying gas from Exxon, because Berkeley felt that the corporation was sluggish in its cleanup of the Valdez oil spill thousands of miles to the north in Alaska.

The result of all this:

“It is possible that the city will be limited to purchasing ‘off-brand’ gasoline, which may be of lower quality,” said Frances David, acting city finance director, leading to “the potential for damage to fleet engines and other equipment.”

One early, tangible result of the expected Nigeria boycott will take place in City Hall’s soda machines. Right now, the brand of choice is Coca-Cola, because rival Pepsi had once done business with Myanmar. But Coke, the city contends, operates in Nigeria.

“We’ll probably revert to Pepsi because they have now divested from Burma,” David said, grappling to explain the minutiae of sweeping resolutions.

After decades of using its local forum to make international statements, the City Council faces the first serious tests of its social conscience. The fuel flap is the second such problem in less than a month to face this city of about 100,000. Ten days ago, city officials received a quarter-inch-thick book listing all firms that do business with Myanmar--a nation that Berkeley decided in 1995 to boycott because of its military government.

As a result, the city now must find a new overnight mail service; Federal Express and United Parcel are out because they do business in Myanmar.

Currently, the ban only applies to outgoing mail from Berkeley. The city--at least for now--will continue to accept packages sent to it via Fed Ex or UPS.

Motorola cellular phones have to be replaced, and IBM and Compaq computers are on the “no” list too. Add this to the fact that the city has long eschewed Hewlett-Packard and NEC products, David said, because those companies do business with defense contractors making nuclear weapons. Berkeley, of course, finds nuclear power unacceptable.

Dell Computer Corp. is the city’s current computer vendor. That’s OK, David said, “so far.”

“Some people say we’re the only city with a foreign policy,” said Mayor Shirley Dean, who notes that Berkeley declared one of the nation’s early municipal nuclear-free zones. “I think it’s more of social consciousness. Look what happened with South Africa.”

Economic pressure did indeed lead to the fall of apartheid in South Africa, with Berkeley leading the way in the United States through its 1979 decision to remove its funds from banks that had ties to that once officially race-divided country.

“We were on that cutting edge and it worked,” Dean said. “We really have a citizenry that does have social consciousness, and we carry that out.”

But even Dean is a little worried about this gas thing. The city now buys gasoline in bulk from a fuel broker, and some officials have city credit cards from Chevron.

In one concession to the difficulties they may face, city workers will be permitted to use the cards for three months until the city manager can figure out some kind of replacement. A Chevron spokeswoman would not comment on the issue Monday.

“If we find we have no gasoline supplier, we may have a much harder decision to make when we have more information,” Dean said. “This is one of the points made by the city manager: Stacking up all of these different kinds of companies that do business in these three countries could cause a problem.”

If the city had just one person figuring out whom Berkeley can and cannot do business with, the task would take upward of 20 hours a week, one official said. And that was before Nigeria.

“I imagine we will need to spend more money to research, because of the level of boycotting we’re doing,” conceded Amy Resner, the mayor’s chief of staff.

According to city documents, there is no database of businesses operating in Nigeria. One local official is trying to arrange for the money to develop such a project, which could have a price tag of up to $15,000.

The prospect of a Nigerian boycott first arose before the city’s Peace and Justice Commission in February. The commission recommended taking action because results of the nation’s 1993 democratic election were suppressed and because the military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha hanged nine environmental activists.

Last week, the whole council viewed a videotape of alleged atrocities in Nigeria and voted 8 to 0, with one abstention, on the concept of a boycott.

The final resolution comes to a vote tonight. It reads in part: “The citizens of the city of Berkeley, believing that their quality of life is diminished when peace and justice are not fully present in the world . . . recognize the responsibility of local communities to take positive steps to support the rule of law and to help end injustices and egregious violations of human rights wherever they occur.”

City Councilwoman Polly Armstrong was the abstention in last week’s vote. She could not be reached for comment Monday, but David said that some council members have occasionally questioned the need for a city to have an international posture.

Still, said one city source, “it’s worth looking ridiculous nine times out of 10. I’ll take South Africa any day. . . . But I’m glad they haven’t touched my Wesson Oil.”

Yet.

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When in Berkeley . . .

The City Council is scheduled to give final approval tonight to a prohibition on doing business with companies operating in Nigeria. Here are some of the companies affected by this ban and some of Berkeley’s previous boycotts:

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Banned Company Product Reason Shell gasoline Nigeria Chevron gasoline Nigeria Mobil gasoline Nigeria Arco gasoline Burma Texaco gasoline Burma Unocal gasoline Burma Exxon gasoline Valdez oil spill Coca-Cola soft drinks Nigeria Motorola cell phones Burma Hewlett Packard computer equipment defense contracts NEC computer equipment defense contracts IBM computer equipment Burma Compaq computer equipment Burma Federal Express mail delivery Burma United Parcel mail delivery Burma

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