An international coalition of AIDS activists, from Harare to Paris, from Casablanca to Atlanta, from Bangkok to New York, is organizing a global protest movement against Coca-Cola on October 16 and 17, 2002. This coalition has been demanding that Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations in developing countries provide medical treatment for all their workers living with HIV/AIDS.
Coca-Cola is the multinational corporation with the most important workforce in Africa : 100 000 workers are promoting, marketing, bottling and distributing Coca-Cola products(Coke, Sprite, Fanta, etc..). Many among these are living with HIV/aids and need to have access to treatments to remain alive.
Coca-Cola ‘s Recent Announcement
Under the pressure of the activists’campaign, on September 29, 2002 Coca-Cola announced an initiative to share the costs of developing access to AIDS treatments with its bottlers in Africa. Thus Coca-Cola has publicly acknowledged it is responsible for the medical care of its employees living with HIV/AIDS who bottle its products. However, in actual fact, the company still refuses to ensure equal access to treatments for all its workers and their dependents.
As a matter of fact, there is some doubt about the effectiveness, scope, pace and continuity of this initiative. In addition, according to the terms of the initiative, it is clear that the majority of the people working for Coca-Cola will not be able to have access to treatments :
– Only 35% of Coca-Cola’s workers are concerned by this initiative which, in fact, concerns only 8 out of the 40 bottling affiliates working for the multinational corporation. These bottlers are, in general, large companies which already have medical insurance plans for their workforce. By contrast, the majority of workers in small bottling affiliates in the regions that are hardest-hit by AIDS will not benefit from medical care treatment.
– Coca-Cola declares it is commiting itself to covering 50% of the costs of medical care, with 40% taken up by its subcontractors and 10% by workers themselves. It is clear this scheme cannot be applied in the same way to all enterprisers. The smallest will be unable to bear the expenses of such medical care.
– Coca-Cola requires its workforce to pay 10% of the cost of all medical treatments received. The majority of Coca-Cola workers will be excluded from any access to medicines because they have no insurance and earn very low salaries. Coca-Cola could, however, very easily subsidize the full treatment program. It would represent no more than a marginal cost for the company.
-Coca-Cola does not plan to play competing drug manufacturers off against each other by resorting to generics. On the contrary, Coca-Cola has announced a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline and PharmaAccess(an alliance of 5 pharmaceutical corporations). It would be, however, in the interest of patients and subcontractors who will have to pay for medicines, to use the least costly products.
-Coca-Cola’s initiative would not cover medical care for entire families, but only for workers and their spouses, thus ignoring HIV-positive children and other dependents.
-Coca-Cola’s initiative is intended to apply only for Africa. Yet, all Coca-Cola employees working in heavily impacted regions in the world need to have access to medicines.
Private Sector Involvement in Access to Antiretrovirals in Developing Countries
If it is, above all, the responsibility of the public sector to ensure access to public health for all people and to do everything possible to implement medical care for AIDS-infected people, the private sector cannot refuse to become involved. Everyday 10 000 people die because they have not had access to drugs which enable people in developed countries to remain alive. The AIDS epidemic has been decimating the populations of many countries and weakening their economies. Multinational corporations in these developing countries must assume their share of responsibility. It is their duty to commit themselves systematically to the funding of their workers’medical care.
Besides research studies have proved it is in the economic interest of these corporations to make sure their employees remain in good health, in particular through the funding of antiretroviral drugs for their AIDS-infected workers and families [[see The Social-Economic Impact of AIDS and Investment in the Antiretroviral Medical Care of a Private Company in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, by S.P.Eholi, E.Bissagnégné, A.Gaumon, J.Mambo, J.Guiza, A.Kakou, A.Kadio, Department of Infectious Diseases, Treichville Hospital, Ivorian Electrical Company, a report presented at the international AIDS conference in Barcelona in July 2002]].
In the developing countries which are the hardest-hit by this epidemic, workers represent an important proportion of the people living with HIV/AIDS. The International Labor Organization(ILO) estimates that 20 million infected people are workers, that is half of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the world. And these people do not have the financial means to have access to antiretroviral treatments.
At a time when the international community is paying more attention to the pandemic and when political officials in developed and developing countries are stepping up their political commitment to fight AIDS, multinational corporations continue to announce new initiatives against this world scourge. However, most of these corporations which are located in developing countries still ignore the fundamental right of their infected employees and their families to have access to affordable life-sustaining treatments and care.
Last August, under union and activist pressure, the mining companies Anglo American, Anglo Gold and De Beers, accepted to cover the medical care of their workers, including antiretroviral treatment.
As for Coca-Cola, it is one of the multinational corporations making the largest profits from the African market, and yet it refuses to guarantee complete access to care and treatments for its entire workforce in Africa.
Our Demands
We demand that Coca-Cola as well as all multinational corporations doing business in developing countries :
-guarantee access to care and treatment for all their employees and their families living with HIV/AIDS
-provide free and anonymous access to testing for all their employees
-make condoms available in the workplaces and implement an information and education policy on safe sexual behavior and sex hygiene
-develop prevention and education programs in collaboration with the affected employees, union representatives and local community initiatives.
Coca-Cola shirks its responsibilities while making the maximum of profits on the African continent.
Yet this company could prevent people from getting infected and dying at little cost. Confronted with an unprecedented health crisis, Coca-Cola must make sure all its infected employees and their dependents can have access to appropriate treatments and care.
