Published: 07/03/2016
Most bottlers in tCC_Pakistan_woman_forklift_driverhe Coca Cola system claim to promote diversity and in particular gender equality. In reality, the number of women employed in the bottling plants is extremely low, ranging from 0 to 10%.

IUF affiliates in Pakistan have successfully encouraged the company to apply a gender hiring policy to recruit more women workers and widen opportunities for women trainees in Coca-Cola plants in Rahim Yar Khan and Faisalabad in 2014.

A big breakthrough for hiring more women saw 4 women employed as fork lift operators in Coca-Cola Pakistan in 2016. They are the first women to ever operate forklifts in Pakistan. A first women gate checker was also employed recently. This achievement by the IUF-affiliated Pakistan Food Workers’ Federation sets an important precedent to overcome the argument of “culture” often used to explain a lack of hiring of more women in bottling jobs.