-
7. How Global Employers Can Address HIV/AIDS
- University of Notre Dame Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
140 7 | How Global Employers Can Address HIV/AIDS The Levi Strauss & Co. Story Kirk O. Hanson The global epidemic of hIV/AIDS, first identified in the early 1980s, initially provoked fear and avoidance, but later, extensive research , public health campaigns, and treatment regimens that became available to a growing proportion of the victims of this disease. Slowly, the disease was turned from one that victims “died from” to a disease “one lives with.” In 2013, the disease is increasingly understood as a preventable and treatable chronic illness and not one to be irrationally feared. At the same time that governments rushed to create preventive campaigns and established programs to identify victims of the disease and make treatments available, other institutions, including corporations , worked to do their part. It was obvious from the beginning that local governments and their public health efforts would not be enough to halt the epidemic. It would also take the effort of national governments, multinational organizations, global philanthropies, and employers. For employers, responding to hIV/AIDS was at first very difficult. Because the disease was first discovered among gay employees, many how Global employers can Address hIV/AIDS 141 companies hesitated to address it directly or openly. They feared that the company or its employees might be stigmatized as word spread inside and outside the company that some employees had the disease and that the company had created programs to address it. Later, companies became more comfortable with the notion that they should respond actively to hIV/AIDS, recognizing that the disease was an important employee health issue—and even a strategic issue. For employers, effective hIV/AIDS programs were easiest to establish in developed societies and where the companies employed large numbers of people. It was much more difficult to create effective programs in developing countries and in places where those companies had small offices, often with just a few sales, retail, or technical employees. But efforts to defeat the disease and efforts to treat all employees equitably required just that. LeVI STRAuSS & co. AnD hIV/AIDS Since the 1980s, Levi Strauss & co. (Levi’s) has been a leader in the business response to hIV/AIDS. Acutely aware of the early growth of the disease in Levi Strauss’s hometown of San Francisco and among an alarming number of its own employees, then ceo Robert D. haas committed the company to create a workplace program for its own employees and an active community aimed at education and prevention of hIV/AIDS. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, the company partnered with other companies through the Business coalition for hIV/AIDS, the united nations, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations to create effective hIV/AIDS programs and to encourage other corporations to take similar strong action. But by 2006, the company, a global employer with more than 15,000 employees scattered in over one hundred countries, came to believe that its programs, while extensive, might not be serving the needs of all its own employees, particularly those in developing countries and in its smallest offices. Did these sales, retail, and technical staff have the same access to hIV/AIDS programs that employees did in the united States and in other countries where Levi’s had large numbers of employees ? company officials reluctantly concluded they did not. [35.173.233.176] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:23 GMT) 142 Kirk O. Hanson In addition, Levi Strauss had long been committed to the welfare of workers in its supply chain, and it was concerned that the employees of the companies that sewed, washed, and finished Levi’s apparel might not have the same protections and education regarding hIV/AIDS that Levi’s own employees had. The company had long prided itself on its pioneering work promoting the welfare of employees in its supply chain, although they were not directly employed by Levi’s. In 1991 the company had established its Terms of engagement, which established standards for working conditions and environmental protection that launched the “supply chain standards” movement. These concerns about the global effectiveness of its hIV/AIDS programs led to a reevaluation in the late 2000s of Levi’s company-wide hIV/AIDS efforts and the development of a new global approach, described in this chapter. ABouT The coMPAnY Levi Strauss & co. is a casual apparel firm, which markets its broad array of clothing and accessories worldwide in both company-owned and independent retail outlets. In 2010 the company employed 16,200 persons, operated in 110 countries...