BY JOHN HARDING
BOSTON - The 525 members of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Stores Union Local 513 at Coca-Cola Enterprises, the distributor for Coke products in New England, went on strike January 18. Since then they have maintained large, spirited picket lines at the company's three plants in the area. Most strikers are on the lines for the hours they would have been working.

Union officials and the company had come to an agreement on a new contract that included eliminating two paid holidays, replacing them with two personal days. Strikers said that after officials presented the contract proposal to the union meeting January 18, many workers voiced their opposition to the pact. They convinced some union officials to change their support for the proposal. In the vote, the union membership overwhelming rejected the company's demands. "We walked right out of there in our sneakers and set up the picket line," one striker said.

Strikers explain that, unlike holidays, personal days are scheduled at company discretion and only 5 percent of the workforce is allowed off work on any one day. Many point to the 10 - 12 hour working days that the company demands, extended overtime with little or no notification, and speedup on the job as central issues in their fight. Workers are also demanding improvements in the company pension plan, which currently provides a union member with 20 years on the job only $700 a month in retirement pay.

Some union officials have seized on the strike issues, such as demands around control of forced overtime, to portray the strike as one centered on supporting "family values." One of the vacation days the company is seeking to eliminate in Veteran's Day. Many workers at the three plants are veterans of U.S. military service. "Be patriotic. Support the Coke strikers," reads a giant electronic billboard maintained by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union right next to the main interstate that runs through the city.

The company's vice president for public affairs Bob Lanz told the Boston Globe that "When we heard that employees were not happy about the final offer, we indicated that we would extend the contract and hold talks indefinitely. But the response was a strike and picket lines. The whole thing took us by surprise." He added that the contract was "ironed out with the leadership. We made no preparations for this and so it did surprise us." The company asked for a five-day extension in order to continue distribution operations in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, one of the busier weeks of the year for the soft drink manufacturer.

Despite their professed surprise, Coke management organized to bus in scabs the next day and had kept plants running ever since. The driver of a bus of scabs ran over a striker and two cops as it careened into the Coke facility in Braintree on the second day of the strike. Lanz demanded workers return to the job before the company would resume negotiations. "Why should we respond to the people who led us down the wrong trail," he said. "We were led to believe this was a good, three-year proposal. Now, everything is being thrown out."  
 
 
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