Persuade Coke To Give Coverage

Divestment has been a big issue on campus this semester—but last Thursday, students weren’t calling on Harvard to divest from Israel. This time, their target was Coke.

The Harvard AIDS Coalition (HAC) led the protest outside Massachusetts Hall, part of its ongoing campaign to pressure Coca-Cola to provide health coverage for 100,000 people in Africa who work for wholly or partially owned subsidiaries of Coke. The University has an extensive relationship with Coca-Cola: It has sizable holdings in the company and contracts for campus dining halls and vending machines, not to mention the fact that a member of the Board of Overseers is also an Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Coca-Cola. HAC has called on Harvard to use this influence, particularly its shares and contracts, to effect change in Coke’s health coverage policies. If Coke doesn’t change, the protesters have asked the school to divest from Coke and terminate its contracts with the soft drink company.

HAC is correct that Coke should change its policies. For a company like Coca-Cola to refuse to provide health coverage to its subsidiaries’ workers is unacceptable—the cost to the company would be bearable, while the lack of coverage costs many workers their lives. Coke already provides HIV treatment to its direct employees here and in Africa, but workers for subsidiaries—mostly bottling factories—do not have access to confidential HIV testing or treatment. Coca-Cola should change its policies to meet these demands, pushing employment standards in Africa up towards levels in America rather than exploiting the region for all it can. To fully fight the AIDS pandemic, Coca-Cola should go even further and contribute to research for a cure to AIDS.

Harvard, too, should do all it can to address the problem of HIV/AIDS, but it can do more if it does not divest from Coke. The University’s status as a large shareholder and contractor lets it hold Coca-Cola to a higher standard than the market alone necessarily requires. Harvard should vote its shares and pressure Coke publicly to provide full health coverage. As a premier research institution devoted to the public good and as an investor wealthy enough to be influential, Harvard is in an ideal position to lead the way on this issue.

The administration’s response to HAC to date has been woefully insufficient. The central administration should always be accessible to students—particularly to well-informed students with strong concerns, in this case about the University’s contracting and investing policies—and yet the President’s Office has so far refused to meet with students to discuss the matter. Instead, HAC has been directed to the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR).

The ACSR, with one undergraduate representative, is a toothless creature of the Corporation. The committee functions solely in an advisory capacity; it meets extremely infrequently and in secret. If the administration wants to showcase the ACSR as an adequate forum in which students can influence Harvard’s investment policies, it needs to give the committee the actual power to control Harvard’s shares in companies that are deemed to be acting irresponsibly. The ACSR should be one of many avenues to bring forward concerns like HAC’s, and the committee should be reformed to make it stronger and more representative, transparent and accountable.

Student protest has historically played an important role in holding the University accountable for its investment policies—a role it continues to play through groups like HAC. Such protest is important in putting issues on the public agenda.

Even without any formal and meaningful voice in University decisions—a voice students urgently need—students have at times managed to succeed in influencing Harvard’s policy. We hope HAC is likewise successful, and that Harvard vigorously pressures Coca-Cola to provide all its workers in Africa with health coverage for AIDS treatment.