Wednesday, September 05, 2007 ALU strikes at soft-drinks firm
THE Associated Labor Unions (ALU) will see to it that when people buy a bottle of soft-drink, they will be reminded of how Coca-Cola Bottlers Corp. had “illegally terminated the services” of its subsidiary’s employees.
ALU said that when Coca-Cola management representatives announced last Monday that it would terminate the services of all Mandaue plant employees of Cosmos Visayas Bottlers Inc., the union was not informed beforehand and the management allegedly ignored the complaint of local union officials.
Doing the opposite
“Ironically, in today’s (Sept. 4) business news, Coca-Cola announced that it has decided to hire 2,000 new employees and that it will redeploy Cosmos employees to other installations. Coca-Cola is definitely saying one sweet thing and yet doing the opposite,” ALU said.
ALU accused Coca-Cola of violating its own workplace rights policy as posted in its website.
Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) 7 Director Elias Cayanong said affected Cosmos workers can seek relief from the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).
Cayanong said that because the workers are already dismissed and 140 of them already got their severance pay, Dole can only supervise whatever case they file before NLRC.
But he refused to comment whether the dismissal of the Cosmos workers is illegal, although he said the Cosmos management should have filed a notice with Dole 30 days prior to the act.
Coca-Cola spokesman Bobby Manzano did not answer calls from Sun. Star Cebu. (EOB)
