Coca-Cola said Sept. 26 it will provide anti-HIV drugs to employees in Africa, including up to 60,000 people who work for independent bottling companies.
Only about 1,500 upper-level employees directly employed by Coke had been eligible for the drugs previously.
The cost will be split 50-50 by the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation and the local bottlers. Spouses will be covered as well, but children will not.
So far, bottlers that employ about 25,000 of the 60,000 employees have joined the program, in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Reunion, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
AIDS activists were unimpressed with the announcement.
"Coke's plans will be implemented too slowly and ... the framework will only suit the largest bottlers--leaving the majority of workers in the hardest hit regions and the smaller bottlers behind," ACT UP/New York, ACT UP/Philadelphia and Health GAP said in a joint statement.
"The company [hides] behind its labyrinthine African franchise system to resist covering its total workforce, which totaled 100,000 workers at the time of the announcement. [This] announced initiative will cover just 35 percent of Coke's bottler workforce in Africa."
AIDS activists will stage protests against the corporation Oct. 17, demanding it fund HIV treatment for all workers in all nations. Demonstrations are planned in the United States, Canada, France, Ghana, India, Japan, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
Sponsors of the Global Day of Protest include South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, the Pan-African HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Movement, Health GAP, ACT UP/New York, ACT UP/Philadelphia, ACT UP/Paris, ACT UP/East Bay, the Global AIDS Alliance, the European AIDS Treatment Group, the Moroccan Fight Against AIDS Association, the Japan-Africa Forum, the Thai Network of People Living with HIV and the Student Global AIDS Campaign.