A Spanish court has ordered Coca-Cola to rehire 821 workers it had laid off and to pay them their outstanding salaries.
Madrid’s national court ruled that the US drinks giant had “undermined” workers right to strike and “not adequately informed or negotiated with staff.”
General Secretary of the food and agriculture federation at the labour Union CCOO, Jesus Villar, responded to the verdict, saying, “they have violated fundamental workers’ rights. The next step is what we’ve been offering them all along: to sit down and negotiate in good faith to find an alternative to keep jobs and achieve a sustainable future for both the company and the workers.”
Coca-Cola closed down four bottling plants in Galicia sparking months of strikes beforehand
It had planned more than 1,000 layoffs, with just over 800 already carried out.
Unions had claimed the cuts were “unjustifiable” when the company was making a profit.
