Coca-Cola redundancies annulled by court and staff to be given their jobs back
Saturday, June 14, 2014 @ 8:10 PM
MASS redundancies at four Coca-Cola factories in Spain due to be shut down have been declared null and void by the National Court, forcing the firm to take back all employees who lost their jobs as a result.
Protests took place all over Spain after the multinational announced the closure of four plants and the relocation of staff to other parts of the country as well as jobs being axed.
Coca-Cola was not suffering financial troubles, but wanted to 'restructure' its factory network and 'centralise' production, in order to 'provide a better service'.
This meant 1,190 workers of Coca-Cola Iberian Partners in Alicante, Mallorca, Asturias and Fuenlabrada (Madrid) were either retired early, given the option to take voluntary redundancy or to move to another part of the country, and in the end laid off altogether if they were unable to reach an agreement with the firm.
Unions working on behalf of the affected employees took the matter to court, and this week a judge declared all the redundancies, early retirements and relocations null and void.
This was because in centralising production, Coca-Cola effectively created a new company which has not been registered, and substantially changed working conditions for staff without prior consultation.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com