We’ve been covering the case of the Peruvian group AJEPER -later renamed AJEGROUP- for some time now, but it might be useful to recall a few facts:

In Peru, the group has gained 20 percent of the domestic soft drink market, owns eight plants and has just opened a new one in Lima where it will produce beer, launched under the name brand Franca. It also operates in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Thailand. Its most famous brands are Kola Real, Big Cola, and Big Chela beer in Mexico.

AJEGROUP likes to present itself as a successful example of a family business -it’s owned by the Añaños family-, capable of competing with global brands of soft drinks and of becoming a thriving transnational corporation. But, as we will see below, this is not the same as saying that it is an exemplary employer.

Last October, AJEPER workers obtained the recognition of their union’s Governing Committee from the Ministry of Labor of Peru for the 2007-2009 period. Spurred by growing labor problems in this bottling plant, the Union of Workers of Embotelladora San Miguel del Sur S.A.C. renewed activities. This plant is located in Arequipa, a mountain city close to Ayacucho, the Añañoses’ hometown. Union members contacted the IUF’s Latin American division, Rel-UITA. to denounce the company’ violation of certain basic labor rights, such as the weekly rest break and the maximum working day. What’s worst, they say, is that most workers are paid minimum wage. Apparently, when it comes to exploiting workers, the Añaños have no qualms about abusing their own “paisanos” (fellow countrymen).

Since they only earn the legally established minimum wage, as a way of increasing their monthly income, workers began working twelve hours or more a day, including Sundays. The result has been that working overtime and during the weekly rest day has become mandatory. If workers decide not to do overtime or they want to enjoy their rest day, management threatens not to give them any more overtime or work on Sundays. The Union demands that this system of exploitation be ended through collective bargaining.

The Union also brought up the case of its members Mauro Quispe Choque and Wilfredo Rolando Valdivia Tito, who chose not to work on a Sunday and were penalized with a transfer from their usual place of work, where they performed technical tasks, to another site where they now perform manual tasks carrying loads. The Constitutional Court that heard their case determined that a reduction in job category, like in this situation, goes against the principle of rationality, the very dignity of the human person, and the right to free development and social welfare.

As if all this were not enough, Union members also denounce that the company, aware that the Union has become active again and has increased its membership, started intimidating and threatening workers with the aim of forcing them to leave the Union.

This is not the first time that the AJEPER group has violated Peruvian laws and the ILO Conventions ratified by the country. In February 2005, when the National Union of Workers of AJEPER S.A. was formed in the city of Lima, the company succeeded in firing all the workers, thus dissolving the Union. Some thirty lawsuits are currently pending against this, but none of the laid off workers have been reinstated.  

Rel-UITA approached Mr. Jorge Rolando Añaños Jeri, CEO of Embotelladora San Miguel del Sur S.A.C., to express, among other things, the following: The IUF, along with its 373 affiliates from 122 country, wishes to inform you that the Union of Workers of San Miguel del Sur S.A.C. has our full international support, and we will remain in permanent alert, monitoring the situation at this plant until the company stops persecuting and penalizing workers and begins to honor their labor and human rights, starting with the right to unionize and to work only the maximum hours established by law, and quickly establishes the necessary conditions for rational bargaining.