Digital Pulse - Ch 3 - Sec 2 - Treat Your Workers Campaign

Development Issues: HIV/AIDS, Workers' Rights

Programme Summary

International Labour Organisation (ILO) statistics indicate that 26 million people living with HIV/AIDS are workers, which amounts to half the current estimated international population of HIV positive people worldwide. They note that, against a backdrop of intensified international attention to the pandemic, corporations made a flurry of announcements of new initiatives designed to combat global AIDS in 2001. Coca-Cola was one of those companies. While this and other companies were highlighted in the media for their initiatives, Health GAP claim that they were, in the meantime, "reaping tremendous profit from low-cost African labour...skirting their most fundamental obligation: providing workers, including those living with HIV/AIDS, with health care coverage."

In April 2002, Health Global Access Project (GAP) and ACT UP launched a worldwide advocacy campaign to demand a comprehensive HIV/AIDS care and treatment programme for Coca Cola's employees and bottling plant workers in Africa and Southeast Asia. A website dedicated to the campaign encourages activism on the part of citizens in the form of letter writing initiatives, local protests and campaigns, and student activities on campuses worldwide. The purpose of the initiative is to urge change in the health care policies of multinational corporations, as well as to provoke government action in those developing countries hardest hit by HIV/AIDS.

Health GAP is a US based NGO composed of human rights activists, people living with HIV/AIDS, public health experts, fair trade advocates and concerned individuals who campaign in an effort to bring corporations and governments to responsibly address the AIDS pandemic. Their aim is to eliminate the barriers to global access to affordable life-sustaining medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS. Their campaign foci include efforts to challenge multinational corporations to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to workers: While Health GAP believes the onus of protecting public health is upon the public sector, the private sector has much to bear on the continued spread and neglect of HIV among communities in which they operate in developing countries. Corporations, such as Coca-Cola and the huge mining concern, Anglo-America, continue to flout the most fundamental need among HIV positive workers in the developing world: the urgent need for access to affordable, life-extending HIV treatment and care.

Other campaigns Include:

• Advocating for funding the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria
• Reforming US and world trade policies
• Fighting for debt cancellation
• Pressuring drug companies

ACT UP is a decentralized organization based in the US but with a growing number of chapters worldwide that provides a host of information and resources for people living with AIDS and activists working to improve government responses to the AIDS crisis.

Summary of ICT Initiatives

The Treat Your Workers campaign site provides information and advocacy tools related to campaign events like these. Tools for activists include a flyer, a student toolkit, "Protest in a Can", art and posters (featuring words like "Neglect Kills...", "Making a Killing...; "Neglect=Death..."; and "Treatment Now"), chants, links, a sample press release, and sample letters meant for Coca-Cola or its shareholders. Here is an excerpt from one such letter: "in Africa, Coca-Cola agreed to pay for full medical coverage, including treatment with antiretroviral drugs, for any of the 1,500 direct corporate employees or their immediate family members who are HIV positive. However, an estimated 100,000 people are employed by the Coca-Cola system, comprised of fully or partially owned business and other companies that can and bottle your product under exclusive licensing agreements that include quality and operation standards set by Coca-Cola. A limited program such as this that leaves most Coke employees behind, and the consistent practice of minimizing any fair obligations to those workers in order to maximize profits, is unacceptable."

The site urges various actions designed to put pressure on company executives. They include organizing local events, holding a press conference, urging one's friends to "dump Coca-Cola", telling one's university or college president that you want Coke off your campus, and getting the word out by placing stickers on Coke machines and posting posters.

Observations

With the links to the worldwide network of ACTUP organizations, the campaign is able to bring attention to the issue in a hoist of countries that would not otherwise immediately be able to access the English language only Health GAP website. This global nature of the campaign is necessitated by the global nature of the target MNC and the worldwide consumption of its product. Coke can invariably be found in almost every country in the world and thus any efforts to alter their corporate practices must be equally international.

This global networking resulted in demonstrations in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Boston, and Barcelona in the summer of 2002, followed by a Global Day of Action on four continents on October 17, 2002 that was designed to increase pressure on Coca-Cola to commit to a comprehensive and sustainable workplace treatment programme. Sponsors of the Global Day of Protest included: Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa), Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement (PHATAM), Health GAP, ACT UP New York, ACT UP Philadelphia, Act Up-Paris, ACT UP East Bay, Global AIDS Alliance, European AIDS Treatment Group, Association Marocaine de Lutte Contre le Sida (Association Fighting AIDS), Morocco, The Japan-Africa Forum, Thai Network of People Living with HIV (TNP+), and Student Global AIDS Campaign.

Partners: Health GAP, ACT UP, Global Treatment Action Campaign

Source: Document "5 Months and Counting: Coke's HIV/AIDS Treatment Program Stalls Before It Begins" forwarded by Sharonann Lynch to the Nigeria-AIDS eForum on March 7, 2003, and the Treat Your Workers campaign site.

For More Information Contact:

Sharonann Lynch

Health GAP

511 E. 5th St. #4A

NYC, NY 10009

Tel: (212) 674-9598

Mobile tel: (646) 645-5225

salynch@healthgap.org