30 Latinos Picket a Coors Executive : 5 Workers Claim They Were Forced From Jobs; Beer Distributor Denies It

About 30 Latinos picketed a dinner for a Coors executive at the Saddleback Inn in Santa Ana on Wednesday night in support of five men who claim they were unfairly forced out of their jobs at the Coors Distributing Co. in Tustin.

The five were members of a special marketing team Coors established in Orange County about six years ago to boost sales in the Latino community, said Mario Franco, a spokesman for the group of five.

“Boycott Coors, we don’t want Coors,” the demonstrators shouted in Spanish. The group included members of local sports leagues with which Franco has worked, and members of Latino student organizations at UC Irvine and Rancho Santiago College.

Inside the Saddleback Inn, about 30 community and business figures--many of them Latinos--were being introduced to Art Bond, the new general manager for the local distributor. Bond, previously an executive with the parent Adolph Coors Brewing Co. in Golden, Colo., arrived in Orange County for his new assignment about three months ago.

In the past, sales of Coors products to Latinos and other minorities had suffered because of accusations that the company discriminated against minorities and was strongly anti-union.

In 1984, the company took what it hoped would be a major step toward ending those problems by signing a five-year covenant with six national Latino organizations, promising to hire more Latinos, award them more contracts and distributorships, spend more money on advertising in Spanish-language markets and contribute $500,000 to nonprofit Latino organizations.

Last year, the AFL-CIO lifted its 10-year boycott of Coors products after signing an agreement that required Coors to allow a union vote at its main Colorado brewery and to employ union workers at any new facilities.

Franco, point man in the local distributor’s effort to gain a foothold in the Orange County Latino market, resigned last month, saying the company “discriminates at the local level and engages in subtle racist policies.”

Coors officials denied Franco’s claims that the company no longer is committed to Latinos and said no one was forced to resign.

Two men who worked with Franco--Chris Orosco, who helped set up merchandising displays, and Hector Espinoza, a route driver--say they were fired for negligible reasons and echoed Franco’s accusations against the distributing company, which is owned by the brewery.

“They fired me over one customer complaint in four years,” said the 25-year-old Espinoza, who was dismissed about 14 months ago. “I spend hundreds of hours volunteering, trying to promote their activities and their events, because I really believed in what they were doing at the beginning. In return, they stabbed us in the back.”

Orosco was fired in April, 1986. “They were calling me in and writing me up for little things,” he said. “You might forget to pull an outdated six-pack of beer off a shelf. . . . It was discrimination.”

General sales manager Gary Cockrum would not comment on the two men’s dismissals. But he said he has “no problem defending our company’s hiring practices. We hire on performance and ability.” Cockrum pointed out that the company still has “a very qualified Hispanic representative” out working every day, performing much of what Franco did.

Two other men who were part of the special marketing team--Rudy Rios and Gary Villa--resigned. Rios left in January, 1987, and Villa last January. They were not at the demonstration Wednesday, but their names were on placards carried by the marchers.

Franco, a Santa Ana resident, said that about a year ago he was told by a supervisor that the marketing team no longer would be allowed to meet together behind closed doors. “They said ‘no more than two Hispanics at a time,’ like we had to take a number or something. Then they said no meetings at all--we were supposed to meet in the hall.”

Said general sales manager Cockrum, when told of Franco’s allegation: “That’s a little ridiculous. I’m not aware of any policy like that.”

Franco said his letter to Coors executives in Colorado complaining about the group’s treatment resulted only in demands by his bosses that he see a company psychologist. He resigned shortly thereafter.

Franco also claims that the distributing company has cut back its budget for spending on local Latino events and advertising in Spanish-language media, and has failed to promote Latinos out of the warehouse.

Bond says none of Franco’s claims are true. “We don’t discriminate, period,” he said. “The budget (for the special marketing program) has increased every year for the last five years . . . about fivefold altogether.”

Manuel Esqueda, a retired Santa Ana banker who now heads a scholarship program for Latino college students, said the company had given his group about $40,000 over the past two years.

“Actions are stronger than words,” said Esqueda, who was attending the dinner for Bond. “I’m going to accept help from anyone who wants to support my people.”