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Pepsi Europe in internal company la



Subject: Pepsi Europe in internal company labor dispute

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from dawn star, paris
 
            http://www-uvi.eunet.fr/asia/euro-burma

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Headline: Pepsi Europe slammed for unethical, illegal employee manipulation 
Keywords: PepsiCo, UITA (Union internationales des travailleurs de l'alimentation), Dublin, Kildare Country Club, Pepsi Europe,Henri Chevolleau (CFDT), Comité d'entreprise, unions, Union Européene, Marcello Ries - UITA expert,
Date: June 10, 1996 
Source: Euro - Burmanet (Dawn Star) (based on a report in Libération, Pierre Hazan, 10 6 96)
Section: Pepsi

Paris - The french daily newspaper Libération, in an economic feature today, reported that Pepsi Europe used unfair, unethical and possibly  illegal business practices in a draconian story of how they mounted a campaign of " intimidation, manipulation and blackmail ", as top Pepsi corporate organisers dominated key worker representatives in a scenario of intrigue and mystery that rings of feudal conspiracy, all in an effort to coerce union signatures.

Pepsi Europe is now feeling that something is rotten internally at Pepsi, and suffers from a badly fallen public image as well. Worse for Pepsi, the UITA (Union international des travailleurs), backed by 2,6 million workers, has filed a formal compaint to  the Européene Union.

The Pepsi saga began last spring when Pepsi Europe  decided to create a " comité d'entreprise ", typical of French corporations as an internal representative committee for defending and expressing worker rights. The EU agreed to let Pepsi, as well as all multinationals, free to write their own documents for discussing social questions with their personnel. Pepsi had until September 22 to do it. After that date, Pepsi senior management would be free to decide questions of employment, down-sizing, -  hiring and firing - and the closing of factories.  

On  May 5, Pepsi invited to Dublin, Ireland, 21 worker representatives from throughout Pepsi Europe, slightly under 10% of the world work force (36.000 of 480.000 workers), and put them in luxury rooms of the Kildare Country Club, each shared with a member of the Pepsi senior management. Work sessions at Kildare took place in the Dublin chateau, where often pass ministerial meetings of the European Union. 

Wined and dined on a first-name-only-basis, when the time came to signing Pepsi's conditions, Pepsi's european worker representatives found themselves cooked like an Irish rabbit - totally isolated, without means to contact their unions headquarters (evidently they are not equipped with cellular phones and Kildare's telecom services are limited !) 

So, these hapless 21 workers, sent to show soldairity in opposition to management, are subjected to killing kindness and stifling wealth, a classic example of how not to play opposition politics in the corporate boardroom.  When a hapless UITA expert, Marcello Ries, having heard about the scandal arrived on the scene, he was treated like a rude  interloper, placed under constant surveillance, and deprived access to essential meetings. 

Pepsi Europe's seduction was so successfull that, when  Henri Chevoleau of the French union CFDT proposed that Marcello Ries participate in the meetings " fifteen representatives of the personnel voted against. They acted as thouggh they were members of a sect, bowing down to the will of their guru." 

In the end, Pepsi's Dublin agreement specifically mentions that the CFDT be excluded from the list of experts authorised to participate at meetings of Pepsi's  internal employee meetings!

But Pepsi Europe did not stop there. The Dubin agreement, good for the next five years, states that worker meetings be organised by a "company coordinator", in other words, a Pepsi management spokesman. Further, all questions are to be determined by the corporate management and no preparatory meetings of employees are permitted between the workers and their representatives ! 

Finally, the Kildare clubbers were forced to pass their vote by hands raised, and not by secret ballot, thereby eliminating any creeping resistance to the corporate plan.

Pepsi's corporate reaction  to the affair : " PepsiCo is delighted to annonce the creation of a  European "comité d'entreprise" (personnel representative committee)...whereby all the personnel representatives voted unanimously to approve and sign the agreement. " Pepsi too appears duped by its own internal information sources, - or media propoganda.




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