Teamsters Protest Coke Layoffs |
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By: Teamsters Local 683 Posted: 2007-01-14 22:15:08 |
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At the San Diego Chargers game today, a plane flew over the stadium with a streaming banner reading, "Powerade Wants San Diego to Lose ..." Teamster workers also leafleted the crowd to protest Coca-Cola Enterprises' (CCE) decision to layoff over one hundred workers at Coke's Southern California bottling and distribution plants.
Generations of Southern Californians have been making, bottling, and delivering soft drinks, including Powerade, in Coca-Cola Enterprises' facilities in San Diego and throughout Southern California. Rather than allowing these longtime dedicated workers to follow their work to the new distribution facility at Oceanside, Coke is throwing them out on the street. Coke will not recognize their legal right to transfer. Coke is hiring new, non-union employees to replace the experienced union employees. The Union intends to bring legal action against CCE's illegal conduct. Coke is now forcing these experienced and reliable workers to reapply for their own jobs at the new facility with no assurance that they will be re- employed or that their Teamster-negotiated wages, conditions and benefits will remain the same. "Southern California workers have done their best by this company for decades, and this is no way to reward them," said Jack Cipriani, Director of the Teamsters Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Conference and Teamsters International Vice President. "At a time when Coca-Cola Enterprises has posted 2005 profits of $514 million, it's smashing the futures of scores of families in San Diego and Los Angeles," said Shannon Silva, Secretary-Treasurer at Teamsters Local 683. "Our members have helped make Coke the classic American soft drink and put Powerade on the map. Now Coke is turning its back on our community." The San Diego CCE workers are represented by the Teamsters Local 683. Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States and Canada. |
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