June 15 2003
A US Coca Cola truckdriver has been sacked - after being spotted glugging down a soft drink made by the rival Pepsi company, union officials said yesterday.
Rick Bronson, who worked for the world's biggest softdrink firm for 12 years, was fired after someone reported him for supporting the enemy, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said.
"Coke is really grasping at straws on this one," said Jim Santangelo, principal officer of Teamsters' branch of which Bronson is a member in El Monte, east of the California hub of Los Angeles.
"This is nothing more than an attempt to get rid of a pro-union employee. The Teamsters will fight every step of the way to get Rick's job back," he vowed.
The Teamsters claim that Coke really sacked the worker because of his work three months ago in organising Coke merchandising workers under the powerful union's aegis. The dismissal came after he was allegedly spotted in the back room of a store where he was making a delivery swigging on a Pepsi.
Bronson believes the person who reported him for publicly straying from his home brand had been hired by Coke to follow him and catch him off guard.
The union alleges that Coke fired Bronson under a company rule that bars "slander" of the world famous product after he was seen drinking the rival soft drink, Santangelo said.
"Hey, Rick's a Pepsi drinker, what can he do?" he said. But it's not as if he was seen drinking a Pepsi in Times Square on live TV - he was in the backroom of a store.
"This wasn't slanderous, they just wanted him because of his union activity and because he is a union leader," he claimed.
A spokesman for the Coca-Cola Bottling Co in Southern California, Bob Phillips, declined to comment on the allegations and on the case citing California's privacy laws, but said the company would not resort to a pretext to fire an employee active in a union.
"I can tell you that we have at this company a strict policy against retaliation and the company does not retaliate, nor do we tolerate any retaliation against employees," he said.
The Teamsters Local 848 has filed unfair labour practice charges against Coca-Cola over the incident, according to the union.
Coca-Cola in California and the Teamsters have been at loggerheads over labour-related disputes, including strikes, involving Coke workers in recent months and negotiations over other contentious issues are still under way.
AFP
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