casualisation/precarisation

In a difficult situation for Panama in general, the union of Coca-Cola workers, SITRAFCOREBGASCELIS, has been able to sign a new collective agreement making important progress.

An agreement negotiated between the IUF, the Atlanta, USA-based The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) and Coca-Cola Icecek (CCI, Coca-Cola's Turkey-based bottler for the Middle East, Pakistan and Central Asia), has successfully resolved a long and bitter conflict over employment and trade union rights at Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan (CCBPL). CCBPL is jointly owned by TCCC and CCI.

The Teamsters union said Coca-Cola Co.'s (KO) plans to buy the North American business of bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) could bring big changes in distribution to retailers like 7-Eleven and cut thousands of jobs in the soft drink industry in North America.

Source: NGG

Niedernhausen / Berlin – March 29, 2010.

„CCEAG has forfeited their second before last chance to a peaceful solution“ – said Claus-Harald Guester, vice president of German IUF-affiliate NGG and lead negotiator during talks with CCEAG, the German Coca-Cola bottler, after the seventh round of negotiations on employment security at Coca-Cola Germany.

"FAWU members and ABI workers' demands for quality and permanent jobs to be retained and expanded are reasonable and noble (…) We demand from ABI Management to engage in sincere and genuine negotiations with FAWU with a view to concluding an agreement on issues in dispute and to undertake not to victimize workers who were on strike and shop stewards for their union role during the strike after the strike is over”.

This was the position adopted by the second Coca-Cola Alliance Steering Committee meeting in a special resolution on the situation at SAB-owned ABI, a Coca-Cola bottler in South Africa, where workers were on strike for more than 7 weeks for better wages and against casual employment. The strike was subsequently settled February 9, 2010.

The RWDSU, one of the IUF's affiliates in the United States representing Coca-Cola workers, reports ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement after difficult but successful bargaining for over 500 Coca-Cola workers in New England.