Unite, the country’s largest union, called on the company to rethink its ‘rigid’ stance on seeking 42 job losses at its new automated warehouse in Kenmore Road.
The job losses are made up of 30 volunteers and 12 compulsory, but Unite says that 10 more workers have come forward for voluntary redundancy with similar skills, so there is no need for all the compulsory redundancies.
To reinforce the message, Unite will be arranging a demonstration at the Cola-Cola site on the industrial park in Wakefield on 19 December.
Unite regional officer Sarah Mitchell said: “Throughout the consultation process, Unite has urged CCE to ‘do the right thing’ and allow those who volunteer for redundancy to go, thus ensuring there is no need for compulsory redundancies.
“Coca-Cola has received sufficient volunteers to allow them to retain the right number of staff with the right skills, but it is still using this restructuring process as an opportunity to make compulsory redundancies, and we believe this is just plain wrong.
“Unite recognises the important role that CCE plays in the local Wakefield economy, but what it is proposing is too rigid and needs an urgent rethink.”
In response to the news from Unite, an official statement from Coca-Cola Enterprises reads:
We are disappointed that the Union is taking this action. We are making a number of changes at our Wakefield facility but we believe that we have worked constructively with our employee representative bodies to minimise compulsory redundancies as far as possible.
The changes, which include higher levels of automation and new ways of working at the site, will ensure our Wakefield facility continues to be an efficient and highly flexible site within our manufacturing network in Great Britain.
We do not make such changes lightly, and since announcing our proposals in October we have consulted fully – both collectively with employee representatives and individually with affected employees at the site. To minimise the impact we identified 19 potential new job opportunities for impacted employees at Wakefield and the vast majority, 38 of the 47 people who are now leaving our business applied for and have accepted voluntary redundancy packages. We are offering support to assist employees through this process and have in place a comprehensive outplacement programme.
We remain absolutely committed to manufacturing at Wakefield and the changes will help us to create a strong platform on which to build our future business in the area as well as meet the needs of a rapidly-changing market.
According to the company’s website, the Wakefield plant was established in 1989 and employs 466 employees. It is the largest soft drinks plant by volume in Europe.
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