Black Coca-Cola Workers Still Angry

Protesters lined Seventh Avenue outside Madison Square Garden yesterday to press criticisms of Coca-Cola Co., which was holding its annual shareholders meeting inside. With labor and environmental activists were dozens of African-American Coca-Cola employees who said conditions have not improved at the Atlanta- based company since it agreed in November 2000 to pay $192.5 million to settle a class-action race-discrimination lawsuit and promised to change the way it manages, promotes and treats minority employees.

Other protestors accused Coke of failing to cover the cost of HIV/AIDS treatment for many workers in Africa, where the company is among the largest private employers. Alba Chavez, a 21-year-old University of Maryland student, said that after promising to extend HIV/AIDS coverage to all its workers in Africa, Coke "recalculated" and now offers such coverage to only 1.5 percent of its African workforce. "Most of these workers are from the managerial corps," Chavez said. "In other words, it's medical apartheid, because most of the people in the managerial corps are white and most of the factory and distribution workers are African."

Coke spokesperson, Sonya Soutus said Chavez's information was "not quite accurate." Soutus said the company covers its 1,500 "direct employees" in Africa for HIV/AIDS treatment while the company's "bottling partners" are working toward offering their employees the same coverage. Soutus said the company was working with its global partners to help improve conditions for workers.

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