In a statement released this week, the Union of Beverage and Related Industry Workers (STIBYS) declares that “We have been negotiating the Collective Agreement since July 2006 with the primary aim of getting SABMiller to comply with the stipulations of the 2003 Collective Agreement and improve working conditions and wages; but we failed in direct discussions, we failed in mediation, and on December 1^st we failed again at the conciliation”.

In its 53 years of existence as a union, STIBYS has gained enough experience to perceive that, as it argues in its announcement, “The transnational corporation SABMiller, allied with Coca-Cola, bans unions in four of the six countries in which it operates in Latin America; and uses temporary employment and outsourcing of operations as a way to prevent unionization, make employment precarious, and increase its profits. By confronting these policies, STIBYS has become a target for destruction by these transnational corporations”.

And to prove its conclusion, STIBYS provides information that exposes the fact that the obstacles placed by the company are not due to a distressed financial situation, as, according to the union, “In 2003, we signed the last Collective Bargaining Agreement, and that same year the company had a total of 8 million US dollars in net profits; but in 2004, net profits were up to 35 million US dollars, in 2005 they had risen to 51 million US dollars, and in 2006 they totaled 59 million US dollars (this year’s figure includes the company’s subsidiaries). In 2005, the company’s capital stood at 92 million US dollars.”

But this increase in profits and benefits is not due to greater production or better management only; rather to bring about such an increase, workers were forced to toil three times more than normal: “This abrupt increase in company profits is due primarily to the exploitation of wage labor -STIBYS explains-, to the effects of the closing of the Tizatillo plant, in Tegucigalpa, to the readjustments in personnel, to the concentration of work in fewer workers with multiple tasks in different areas of production, to the greater concentration of the sales and distribution system, to the long and exhausting workdays in the various sales and distribution centers throughout the country, to outsourcing and use of temporary workers to make work precarious, to the violation of several economic and social clauses stipulated in

the Collective Agreement, to the opening of a large number of private warehouses to eliminate routes covered by permanent workers, to the new technologies adopted in the production and distribution areas, and to the rise in soft drink and beer prices,” the union denounces in the statement.

Consulted by Sirel, Carlos Reyes, general secretary of STIBYS, explained that “Last weekend we concluded the conciliation stage with the company. Next weekend -December 8 and 9-, we will be holding meetings in every plant throughout the country to elect our representatives to the Delegates Congress, which will be held on December 15 and 16. There we will present a report describing the entire collective bargaining process, and it will be the Congress who will decide whether we call a strike or not. In my opinion, it is practically inevitable that the Congress will vote in favor of a strike. In that case, after informing the company, there is a term of six days before the measure can be effectively implemented. In view of the special time of the year we are in, we will have to see what date the Congress chooses to initiate the strike.”

The negotiation lasted 16 months, during which, at the same time it was sitting down to talk with the Union, SABMiller was violating the previous Agreement signed in 2003. “Actually -Reyes adds-, all this time we have been trying to defend the previous Agreement in such issues as workday, wage advances, number of workers to a job, the elimination of temporary and outsourced workers in permanent tasks, that any replacements in sales and distribution must be done with permanent workers, etc. It is absurd that we are forced to struggle to make the company observe the eight-hour workday, as it is pressuring us to work 12 and 14 hours a day. In this situation -Reyes concludes-, there is no other solution but to strike”.