US Beverage-Maker Mott's Celebrates Booming Sales and Share Price by Attacking Wages!
This is of course the pattern of things to come as companies across the globe play on the fear of employees as they see lots of jobs disappear. Strong organised union and solidarity between different trades and occupatioins is the only answer. Of course the ultimate aim should be to organise to occupy and run the various workplaces that try to return workers to the Victorian era.
Workers at juice and beverage manufacturer Mott's in Williamson, New York, members of the RWDSU-UFCW Local 220, are being asked to celebrate the company's highly successful sales and stock performance by agreeing to steep cuts in their wages and the elimination of their pension plan. Mott's is a subsidiary of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, the North American beverages division spun off by Cadbury Schweppes in 2008, whose leading brands in addition to Mott's include Snapple, Yoo-hoo, A&W and Hires root beers, Crush, Sunkist, Hawaiian Punch, Canada Dry, Squirt, RC Cola, Diet Rite, and of course Schweppes, among others.
In negotiations for a new collective agreement, management is demanding an across-the-board reduction of wages of USD 2.50 per hour and the total elimination of their company pension scheme! The company's only announced rationale for these steep cuts has been that the workers simply earn too much an astonishing claim for a profitable, growing company.
You can support the union by sending a strong, simple message to Dr. Pepper Snapple CEO Larry Young: the company's demands are unacceptable!
To send a message go to: http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=500
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