Coke Unions in Asia Demand Rights, Fight for Contract Workers

Posted to the IUF website 10-Oct-2003

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Unions representing Coca-Cola workers in Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines and Sri Lanka met in Manila on 6-7 October 2003 and agreed to the following statement:

Coca-Cola Unions in the region express their concern about restructuring and its adverse impact on labour in the form of contractualisation and outsourcing. Coca-Cola Unions in the region agree to struggle for atypical, contract and irregular workers to have trade union rights and the right to collectively bargain. Coca-Cola Unions in the region commit to organising atypical, contract and irregular workers and to seek to include provisions in their CBAs and other labour agreements protecting these non-permanent workers with the aim to making them permanent.

Coca-Cola Unions agree to move towards unified national coordination, with the aim to have strong bargaining power to protect the interests of all employees.

Overall, the conference looks towards a Coca-Cola labour-management system which is based on relations of mutual agreement and trust where negotiations with unions go beyond mere notification or consultation. We call on the Coca-Cola system to respect the core labour conventions of the International Labour Organisation, in particular freedom of association and collective bargaining, and to honour collective bargaining agreements which have standards that exceed national legislations.

We condemn the introduction of legislative proposals and judicial decisions in South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Hong Kong which are seriously undermining established trade union rights and increasing the power of employers to marginalise trade unions and increase casualisation. We call on national trade unions to cooperate with the regional secretariat to exchange information on the ways to defeat these anti-union efforts.

In regard to the upcoming Global Coca-Cola management/IUF meeting in New York on 21 October 2003, the meeting requests that the secretariat raise the following issues:

Concern about the on-going replacement of regular permanent jobs with atypical, contract and irregular labour in many countries. For example, the implementation of the Avail system in Coca-Cola Philippines is resulting in layoffs and involuntary retirements of long-service regular employees whose functions are replaced by newly hired subcontracted employees;

The relationship between bottlers and the Coca-Cola Company has become increasingly unequal, and this imbalance has caused negative consequences for Coca-Cola workers;

Region wide there is a lack of information from the Coca-Cola Company on strategy and restructuring, and where it is available it is more often in the form of announcements of previously made decisions; in this regard, India and the Philippines particularly stand out.

That the Coca-Cola Company organise and invest in production systems which are ecologically balanced and respect local needs for resources, specifically water.