The leader of the local trade union for the Coca Cola bottling company Amatil in Bawan, central Java, was recently dismissed in a blatant anti-union move. This followed the workers’ successful campaign, which began in late 2016, to unionise and register their own union. This case was very similar to what the Coca-Cola workers in the Jakarta-Cibitung area, have faced in the last two years. They also managed to organise and register their own plant union, but the company immediately harassed the organisers and was able to sack the main union leader. Coca-Cola has a long history of union repression in the region, as past disputes in Turkey, Pakistan and Hong Kong show.
The leader of the local trade union for the Coca Cola bottling company Amatil in Bawan, central Java, was recently dismissed in a blatant anti-union move. This followed the workers’ successful campaign, which began in late 2016, to unionise and register their own union. This case was very similar to what the Coca-Cola workers in the Jakarta-Cibitung area, have faced in the last two years. They also managed to organise and register their own plant union, but the company immediately harassed the organisers and was able to sack the main union leader. Coca-Cola has a long history of union repression in the region, as past disputes in Turkey, Pakistan and Hong Kong show.
