Coca Cola workers to strike over outsourcing plans

Workers at Coca Cola Ireland are to strike over the company’s decision to outsource around 130 jobs, it was revealed today.

Trade union Siptu served notice on bosses after talks at the Labour Relations Commission ended without agreement yesterday.

Union chiefs said management would only discuss its plan for lay-offs and outsourcing.

But Coca Cola said there was no alternative but to push ahead with the cost-cutting proposals and claimed strike action was detrimental.

Gerry McCormack, Siptu’s National Industrial Secretary, said: “Having agreed initially to attend the LRC and recognise SIPTU’s position on a number of issues, Coca Cola HBC has now stated that it is only willing to talk about transferring our member’s jobs to third party operators and redundancies.”

“It is the first time our members have engaged in strike action since the company began trading in Ireland over 50 years ago.”

Coca Cola carried out a review of its operations in June and said its costs here were high compared with other countries.

The company said it held talks with workers and trade union bosses and various alternatives to outsourcing were examined but no alternative could be devised.

The affected workers are based in warehousing and distribution services in Dublin, Cork, Tuam, Tipperary, Waterford and Killarney.

Gokhan Bilgic Managing Director Coca-Cola HBC Ireland, said: “We appreciate that this is a difficult time for those affected however this is a necessary step in order to ensure the future viability of the business and safeguard the positions of as many employees as possible.

“Strike action is detrimental to everybody and we would like to resume engagement with Union representatives as soon as possible in order to agree comprehensive transition and redundancy terms.”

Mr Bilgic said the industrial action would not affect business.

Siptu said management at Coca Cola were trampling on years of partnership and co-operation.

The company said it was offering a redundancy package of six weeks per year of service up to 125,000 euro or the option to transfer to the third party logistic providers.