Pepsi Guatemala Workers Continue 22 Months of Struggle for Reinstatement

Posted to the IUF website 21-Aug-2004

Share this article.



THE IUF THANKS YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST. HOWEVER ACTION ON YOUR PART IS NO LONGER NECESSARY. FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK HERE.

Twenty two months after their illegal dismissals, 30 Pepsi workers continue their 18 month-long protest in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City. They are members of the IUF-affiliated federation FESTRAS.

Bolstered by international solidarity, they have refused to accept buyout offers from Pepsi franchise CabCorp (formerly La Mariposa) which fired some 66 union members in October 2002 to replace them with non-union contract workers. Click here for the background of this struggle.

The company has offered some additional severance money, but only on the condition that the workers drop their struggle for reinstatement and renounce international solidarity. The company lawyers are appealing two court orders for reinstatement to the Supreme Court, winning a temporary stay of their execution, and thereby hoping by delay to starve out the remaining workers.

Accordingly the workers have stepped up demonstrations against the company and the pro-business government of President Berger. In addition to leafleting outside the bottling factory, the dismissed workers have held rallies outside the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Labour, the offices of CabCorp, the American Embassy and the University of San Carlos. They have called for a national boycott of Pepsi products until they are reinstated to their jobs.

Act Now!

We ask you therefore to continue sending protest messages to CabCorp, to PepsiCo and to the Guatemalan government by clicking here.

Copies of your protest will automatically be sent to the IUF general and regional secretariats and to FESTRAS in Guatemala.