solidarity with Coca Cola workers

The All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) realised a protest outside the headquarters of the Coca-Cola 3E enterprise in Athens due to the dismissal of 130 workers in Ireland. It was a demonstration expressing the international solidarity of the class trade union movement with the 130 workers who were fired by this monopoly group in Ireland.

Under the slogan “No to the dismissals of Coca-Cola workers,” trade unionists of the Trade Union Federation of Milk, Food and Beverages remained for over an hour under the pouring rain outside the head office of the enterprise. During the manifestation of PAME the board of the company was holding a general assembly of the shareholders in Greece.

“An attack against a worker is an attack against his class as a whole” was the message of yesterday’s mobilization. "The phenomenon of dismissals does not only have to do with the Coca-Cola Enterprise in Ireland,’ mentioned Dimos Koumbouris, member of the Executive Secretariat of PAME in his statement. “It’s a common phenomenon in all countries, including Greece. Every day there are more dismissals and factory closures and more pressure is exerted on workers so that they work under worse conditions.”

Panagiotis Tsichlis, president of the Trade Union Federation of Milk, Food and Beverages, mentioned in his statement that “we came here to express our international solidarity with the workers in Ireland who take action against the anti-worker measures of the enterprise that wants to throw them on the streets. We have experienced such kind of plans ourselves too. In 2005 the workers of Coca-Cola in Greece proceeded in manifestations for fifty days against the dismissals.”

The workers of Coca-Cola in Ireland sent a message to PAME thanking the class trade unions for the interest on their struggle.

Coca-Cola 3E, in the framework of the “reorganisation” of the enterprise and the assignment of the supply chain to subcontractors, proceeds with thousands of dismissals. Some articles report staff reductions by 4,500 workers, including those who retire. The result of this policy, according to the company, will be a cost saving of €115 to 120 million in 2009. Thus, workers get dismissed so that the profits of the employers grow.

Class struggle and international proletarian solidarity is a precondition for the reconstitution and strengthening of the class-oriented working-class movemTo the workers dismissed by Coca-Cola and to the working class of Irelandent.