GSFP Comment

I apologize to my readers for not having more information on the teamsters strike, but I can only write what I can find.  Unfortunately, I am not finding too darn much on this subject.  Sorry, guys.

AL & MS: Teamsters Strike

I wish I had more info to pass on about the strike against Coke, but there is few comments and recently I went by the local plant to see if the strikers needed anything, but there was no one out there.  It could have been too early and regretably I could not make it by later to see if there were any strikers.

I apoplogize for the lack of info but we are trying to keep all up to date as best we can.

AL & MS: You Can Help The Teamsters On Strike

This is letter sent to the CEO of Coke–please read and sign a copy and mail it to him.  Get involved!  Support the workers!

Appeal for Justice

The Coke Side of Life:
Work Hard, Retire Poor

Mr. J. Frank Harrison
Chairman and CEO
Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated

Dear Mr. Harrison,

For decades, workers at Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (Coke) have helped build a successful company that has created many good jobs for Alabama. In return, they’ve always earned decent pay and benefits—and retirement with dignity.

But on July 12, your company spokesperson told Teamsters representatives that the company would no longer contribute to these workers’ pensions. Under Coke’s scheme, a worker would face a $795-per-month reduction in retirement income when he or she is 62, after working for Coke for 42 years.

Meanwhile, executives at your company made millions in 2007. Top management will retire in comfort—but unless Coke gives back its employer pension contributions, employees who gave their lives to this company will struggle in their old age.

We believe that Alabama’s seniors deserve to retire with dignity. We the undersigned support Teamsters Local Union 991 and their fight to preserve retirement benefits. We urge you to get back to the bargaining table and negotiate a fair and just contract with the workers who have given so much to your company.

Sincerely:

Name______________________________Signature___________________________

Organization/Company/Congregation/Union:__________________________________

Telephone ______________________ E-Mail_________________________________

Name______________________________Signature___________________________

Organization/Company/Congregation/Union:__________________________________

Telephone ______________________ E-Mail_________________________________

Name______________________________Signature___________________________

Organization/Company/Congregation/Union:__________________________________

Telephone ______________________ E-Mail_________________________________

Just a reminder–help these workers in any way that you can.

AL & MS: Teamsters/Coke Update–#4

This was sent to me in an email by the Teamsters:
The Teamsters and Coke Consolidated are scheduled to meet next week.  The workers are still on strike and shall remain on the picket line until management and the union resolve the pension issue.

I was also told by a Teamsters spokesperson that the strike was going well and that only 6 of the 275 strikers have crossed the picket lines.

Remember:  These strikers are out in the heat and sun, if you are in the area show them your support.  Stop by and shake hands, bring some water and some snacks.  These strikers are fighting for their economic lives and need your help.  Please give them all the support you can, it will will appreciated.

AL & MS: Coca-Cola Strike UpDate

Before I begin I would like to thank the Teamsters for getting in touch with me and I will make sure that all available info on the strike is passed on to the public.

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated Fact Sheet

July 2008

The Company and Its Management

• Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated (NASDAQ: COKE) is the second-largest bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola products in the United States and employs 5,800 workers. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) owns approximately 30 percent of COKE.
• COKE bottles and distributes Coca-Cola products throughout the Southern U.S., including Coke, Diet Coke, Powerade, Dasani water, and Sprite, to major customers such as supermarkets, liquor and convenience stores, universities, and restaurants.
• COKE is headquartered at 4100 Coca-Cola Plaza, Charlotte, NC 28211, USA, (714) 557-4400. J. Frank Harrison, COKE’s Chairman and CEO for the last 14 years, is also the great-grandson of company founder J.B. Harrison.
• Although COKE is a publicly traded company, the Harrison family holds 91 percent of COKE shareholder votes, and has irrevocable, lifelong rights to vote the shares owned by the Coca-Cola Company.
• COKE lost $4.3 million in the first quarter of 2008.
• CEO J. Frank Harrison’s total actual compensation for 2007 was more than $5.4 million, exceeding the median for a company of this size by 20 percent.
• Corporate governance analysis firm The Corporate Library downgraded COKE’s rating from “D” to “F” in 2008 due to very high risks arising from its corporate governance structure, including no standing nominating committee for the board, high levels of CEO compensation, and disproportionate control of shares by the Harrison family.

Employees at Coca Cola

• For more than 100 years, workers have been making, bottling, and delivering soft drinks at COKE facilities. The Teamsters represent 450 workers in Ala. and W. Va.
• Teamsters Local 991 in Mobile, Ala., has represented 275 production and distribution workers at four plants for more than 40 years with a long history of labor peace.
• The Mobile contract between the Teamsters and COKE expired on July 12, 2008. The parties cannot come to agreement on retirement benefits, wages, and health care costs.
• COKE has tried to take away Mobile workers’ retirement benefits for the past two contract negotiations by eliminating their Teamster pension plan—yet they agreed in April 2008 to increase contributions to the Teamster W. Va. pension plan by more than 12.5 percent.
• Under the company’s bargaining proposals, senior employees in Mobile would lose hundreds of dollars per month in retirement income. A 42-year employee alone would suffer a $795 reduction in monthly benefits if he retired at 62 years of age.
• The company is demanding a 29 percent increase in workers’ contribution for health care coverage costs.
• COKE made its final contract offer on July 12, 2008. The Teamster workers overwhelmingly voted the offer down and authorized a strike.
• The Teamsters Union is available to negotiate. Jim Gookins is the Secretary-Treasurer of Local Union 991, 112 South Broad Street, Mobile, Alabama, U.S., 251-433-1521.

I would also like to mention that if any of my readers are near a Coke plant, go by and show your support of the strikers.  They can always use some water or snacks and you encouragement.

AL & MS: Teamsters Local 991 and The Strike

I wish I had more info on the strike, but I keep trying to find more on the strike and the local website has NOTHING!  I would think that this would be a bigger deal than they are treating it.  I mean there are numerous members that are fighting for the economic survival and where are the Teamsters?

I will continue to try and find out as much as possible on the strike and the whole situation.  Please be kind to us, we are a bit busy and have limited resources, but we try with what we have.

MS & AL: Teamsters/Coke UpDate

A week into the strike against local Coca-Cola operations by the Teamsters union, neither side is showing any signs of budging. The company is importing workers, while the union rallied Friday morning near the Tillman’s Corner plant.

On July 12, union members rejected a contract offered by Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated of Charlotte, N.C., the nation’s second largest Coke bottler, and walked out. The Teamsters’ contract covers about 275 of 300 local workers.

The main dispute is over worker pensions. The company wants to stop paying into the traditional pension fund run by the Teamsters and instead put more money into workers’ 401K retirement accounts. Workers would still collect benefits they’ve already earned, but the company, after one last payment, would no longer contribute.

Typically, a company makes its biggest pension deposits as a worker nears retirement, and the union says the proposal is a money-loser for such employees.

Though a federal mediator is involved, there have been no talks since the strike began. Steele said the company wants the union to vote again on an offer that was rejected by a 176 to 15 margin. Jim Gookins, secretary-treasurer of Mobile’s Teamsters Local 991, said the union wants new talks.

Steele said the company is importing workers from other operations. He also noted that union members will soon have to pay for their own health insurance — $1,155 a month for family coverage.

“When our volume is 3 percent ahead of last year for July and we’re not skipping a beat, they miscalculated on whether they are going to hurt our business in Mobile,” he said.

Steele said Coca-Cola Consolidated announced Thursday that it would cut 350 employees, or 5 percent of its workforce, as it gets hammered by rising costs for things like fuel and corn syrup.

AL: Coca-Cola Strike News

Local Coca Cola bottling and delivery ran normally Monday, or work barely limped along.

On the second day of the Teamsters union strike against Coca Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated in southwest Alabama and southeast Mississippi, those were the competing versions of reality put forth by the company and strikers.

No talks were in sight as Teamsters manned picket lines in Tillman’s Corner, Robertsdale, Leroy and Vancleave, Miss. The only contact between the two sides was through the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service, which aids negotiations between unions and employers, said Jim Gookins, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 991, based in Mobile.

Gookins said he understood through the mediator, that the company wants workers to return to their jobs before any more negotiations. Lauren Steele, vice president of corporate affairs for Coca-Cola Consolidated said he knew of no such precondition to talks.

Both sides agree the dispute centers on the company’s desire to freeze the traditional pension plan and instead make larger contributions to a 401K retirement savings plan. Steele said the proposal includes payments to help older workers make up the difference in expected pensions. But Gookins has said they aren’t enough, and that veteran workers would be especially pinched.

The three-year contract offer also included an annual raise of 3.25 percent.

Steele said the company has been pinched by soaring costs for fuel, corn syrup and other materials, and made a fair offer despite “very difficult economic conditions.”

Workers saw it otherwise, rejecting the deal 176 to 15 Saturday evening, hours before the strike began.

I can appreciate the Mobile Press-Register for trying to keep the news of the strike in the forefront.

MS: Question For Media

Why is the strike by the workers of Coca-Cola not news? Granted it could be a bit boring, but when has that ever stopped the media in South Miss. These guys set the stage for boring.

I realize that MS is a right to work state, but anytime the workers are fighting for their rights—iut should be news. I have tried to get in touch with the local that is striking and even their website did not have any info on the strike.

We will try to get more info to pass on to the readers. And please if you are in the neighborhood, go by and show the workers some support–coffee, water, snacks are all appreciated.

MS: Strike Begins

Truckers, plant operators and bottling workers at Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated’s operation went on strike Sunday after Teamsters rejected a last-minute contract from the soft-drink distributor.

Teamsters are feuding with the nation’s second-largest Coke distributor over weekly contributions into a union-run pension plan.

Local company officials referred the Sun Herald’s calls seeking comment to their corporate headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., which was closed Sunday.

Gookins said “for years” the North Carolina-based company has put $69 per week, per union member into the pension fund. The union wants an increase, something that hasn’t happened since 1990, Gookins said.

However, Gookins said, the company has said it plans to withdraw from the pension fund and instead of the $69 weekly payments it will put $10 a week into 401k plans for each union member.

In addition, Gookins said, the company is required by federal law to contribute one last payment into the pension plan, a buyout estimated to be between $16 million and $19 million over 20 years.