> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 00:59:36 -0500 (EST)
> From: cris d'angelo <sf1rj at scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>
> Subject: Minute Maid/Coca Cola Workers on strike
>
> WORKING CLASS NEWS----online
> Dwarfed by the towering structures of the Auburndale, FL Coca Cola/Minute
> Maid plant, Sonia Mejia held up her end of a block long picket line in a
> strike that's now in its fifth week. At midnight January 7th, 2000, about 165
> members of Teamsters Local 444 went on strike against Coca Cola/Minute
> Maid. Since 1997 the company has been operated by a Brazilian juice
> company called Cutrale.
>
> "This is not an economic strike," said Gary Gibson, a union steward who
> has 17 years with the company. Charges of unfair labor practices have been
> filed against the company with the National Labor Relations
> Board. Charges include failure of the company to bargain in good faith,
> use of racial slurs by company security guards against union members,
> guards assaulting union members, attempts by the company to erode the
> bargaining unit by direct dealing with workers, and making unilateral
> changes without prior notice to the union. On this last charge, the labor
> board has already ruled in favor of the union, and the company owes
> $118,000 in back wages.
>
> Since the strike started, local sheriff's deputies have ticketed drivers
> who honked horns in support of the strikers, and company hired security
> personnel have been videotaping the strikers and others on the picket
> line. "You're being videotaped now," union president Joe Morgan told the
> writer.
>
> When Cutrale came in, some workers took 1/3 pay cuts. With their last
> contract, workers said goodbye to their sick leave. Now the company wants
> to eliminate seniority, replace long time workers with temps and
> subcontracters--in other words, replace union members with
> inexperienced scabs. The company has busing in scabs and serving them free
> catered lunches, something that was never done for the union workers.
> Before the strike, temps were paid $6.50 an hour. Now they're getting
> $10.50. Production is down to 25% of what it was before the strike, and
> two production lines are running, instead of the usual three.
>
> Asked what her work is in the plant, Sonia answers without
> embellishment: "Labor." And labor is what it's all about; the labor of
> millions of working women and men whose toil produces the huge profits
> realized by companies like Cutrale/Coke/Minute Maid. But in the push for
> more profits, companies always seek cheaper labor sources, leaving
> workers like Sonia--literally--out in the cold.
>
> In 1997 Coca Cola Food's Minute Maid sold its Polk County processing
> plant, outsourcing juice production to Brazil based Cutrale. There is no
> union in the Brazilian company, and child labor is common there. In 1998
> the Teamsters tried humor to bring attention to abuses by Coca
> Cola/Minute Maid by parodying the song "I'd Like to Buy the World a
> Coke." The first verse went like this:
> "We'd like to work at Minute Maid
> In peace and harmony
> With no barbed wire or guns for hire
> No armed security."
>
> But humor didn't work. The jingle, sung by children of Teamsters, was
> rejected by ten radio stations, whose corporate rulers are apparently
> sensitive to the feelings of big corporations.
>
> Not content with exploiting low wage workers in Brazil, Cutrale/Coke wants
> to bring the misery home. Workers report that rats infest the area where
> fruit is stored, mold grows on production lines that are not shut down for
> cleaning, and supervisors have become lax in upholding Coke quality
> control standards. Loss of quality control led to a major health scare in
> Europe last summer that caused Coca Cola products to be banned in two
> countries. More recently, Hi-C has recalled its boxed juices in this
> country.
>
> The company and Teamsters representatives will resume negotiations
> tomorrow.
>
> Coca Cola has not learned from its mistakes. Now Florida management wants
> to turn over much of Minute Maid production to undertrained temporary
> help. (Writer's note: typical management union busting tactic) Does that
> sound safe?
>
> Agitating for a better tomorrow/Solidarity,Cris D'Angelo UFCW, IWW