Stibys reports that the companies Embotelladora La Reyna (PepsiCo), Cervecería Hondureña (AB-inBev-Cocacola), and Embotelladora de Sula (Larach-PepsiCo) have formed an anti-union alliance with the supermarket chains Walmart, Pricesmart, and Supermercados La Colonia.

These three companies combined employ over 1,500 workers.

According to Stibys, the sales strategy of PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, and the beer corporation consists in granting very favorable marketing conditions to these supermarket chains so that they can sell their products at prices below those offered by the trucks of the companies themselves, which employ workers who are formally on the payroll.

“This is something unprecedented in the last hundred years, and they were able to impose it with the help of the previous governments,” which came to power through a coup d’état and passed terrible laws, such as the law that establishes hourly employment contracts.

For six years, throughout which there were no pay raises, Embotelladora La Reyna has refused to sign a new collective bargaining agreement, employing dilatory tactics.

Today, having reached the conciliatory stage (which is the step prior to a strike), it refuses to grant sales workers the same marketing conditions it grants supermarkets and warehouses through an unjust and unconstitutional action by PepsiCo, backed by Coca-Cola.

The IUF Latin American Regional Office, with the support of COFADEH, a Honduran civil society organization, has launched a global campaign to denounce this outsourcing system in beverage distribution operations, which undermines wages, permanent employment, and freedom of association, Stibys highlights.

(With information from Stibys)