Unite will be seeking greater clarification of the full impact following the announcement that CCE is to exit its Direct Store Delivery operation, resulting in 288 redundancies, 160 of whom are Unite drivers and warehouse workers.
The sites impacted include Bristol, East Kilbride, North London, Northampton, Sidcup and Wakefield.
Unite national officer for food and drink Jennie Formby said: “This news will be a devastating blow for our members and their families, especially in the current economic climate of austerity, welfare cuts and now rising unemployment.
“It is too early to make a detailed analysis of the announcement. However, our immediate priority must be to get full details of the reasoning behind this decision and to examine what alternatives there could be for our members.
“Cola Coca Enterprises is a highly profitable and successful global company and we will be doing everything in our power to protect jobs.”
An official statement from Coca-Cola Enterprises reads:
Following a strategic review, we are proposing to end our direct delivery service in Great Britain. This service is primarily used by foodservice outlets and we have identified the need for a more efficient way of distributing our products to these customers.
We have now started a full consultation on these proposals with our employee representative bodies and the Unite trade union. If these changes were implemented they could result in the loss of approximately 288 roles from a total workforce in Great Britain of 4,400.
We do not make these proposals lightly and we will, of course, be looking to minimise redundancies as far as possible and will offer support to help colleagues through this process.
Under these proposals we would end our direct delivery service towards the latter part of this year, by which time we will have put in place alternative distribution arrangements for customers. Until then, there will be no changes to our current operation and we will work closely with customers to ensure the highest service levels during this period of change.
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