SACKED employees of Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines along with union groups of other companies will stage a rally in front of the Coke bottling plant in Barangay Mansilingan, Bacolod City at 5 p.m. Friday.
Benjie de la Cruz, national president of Congress of Independent Organizations, a federation of union groups, said the picket will to protest the “unfair redundancy process” of the Coke management.
Earlier, Coca-Cola laid off some 600 personnel nationwide, including 51 from the Bacolod plant due to the bottling company's impending restructuring.
De la Cruz said affected employees will air out their grievances during the nationally-coordinated coordinated rally this afternoon. He added that the retrenchment has no due process.
He also said the separation program the company offered didn’t go through the right process since the Collective Bargaining Agreement stated the management should inform the union of its decision.
De la Cruz pointed out the retrenchment has no clear basis since “it was not clear whether it was evaluated through performance.”
He said the laid-off workers are also asking Coke to increase the separation package.
In an earlier statement, Coke said it is undergoing an organizational structure assessment due to the recent developments in the beverage industry and in the business landscape as a whole.
It added that it involved a comprehensive review of the roles and responsibilities within Coca-Cola Femsa.