Thousands of workers from Coca-Cola bottling factories in Spain have staged a protest against the company's plan to close some of its plants and lay off workers.
Several thousand people have marched from a Coca-Cola bottling plant in a southwestern suburb to downtown Madrid in protest over Coca-Cola Iberian Partners (CCIP) plans to close four of its 11 plants and lay off 1,253 workers.
Employees, family members, trade unionists and sympathizers left the plant in Fuenlabrada and walked 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) on Sunday to Puerta del Sol square, giving away Pepsi cans and chanting "No to the closures."
"The plants are profitable but they are throwing us into the street," a Fuenlabrada plant worker told Yahoo News.
"It is a modern plant but they are shutting it just so they can make more profits," he added. "The 'happiness' of Coca-Cola is a sham."
In a statement issued last December, CCIP said the restructuring aimed to integrate separate business structures, allowing the company to operate as a "more agile, efficient and competitive company." In addition, it said that "internal relocations or early retirements will be offered" in an attempt to reduce the overall amount of redundancies.
© 2014 - European Supermarket Magazine by Enda Dowling
