The President of the Workers Party has called for a boycott of Coca Cola products while the owners of the Coca Cola brand in Ireland persist in their plans to make 130 workers redundant and to outsource their jobs to lower paid workers with less favourable working conditions.

Michael Finnegan said that there needed to be a united front by workers, employed and unemployed, against outsourcing of employment by profit making companies and that Coca Cola was only the latest of many such companies to join the “race to the bottom”.

The Workers Party President pointed out that the owners of the Coca Cola franchise for Ireland, Coca Cola HBC which is based in Greece, had made profits of over €200 million in the first six months of 2009.  This was despite the current recession and the company is financially sound and was able to spend €10 million last year in buying back some of its own shares from the market, a sure sign of it viability.

“There is no justification whatsoever for a profitable concern such as Coca Cola to sack workers and replace them with outsourced, low paid workers.  This is becoming an all too prevalent response of companies to the economic downturn with profitable companies taking advantage of the situation to make unnecessary cuts and drive down wages to boost shareholder dividends rather than responding to a crisis.  This is nothing less than sheer greed”, said Michael Finnegan.

“As President of the Workers Party I offer this party’s full support and solidarity to the workers at Coca Cola and I would urge all workers to support them by boycotting Coca Cola products until such time as the company recants on its unilateral breakage of longstanding collective agreements with the trade unions in the company and go back to the negotiating table in a meaningful way”, he said.

Issued 31st August 2009