Teamsters Picket L.A. Coke Plants

Teamster drivers, packers and warehouse workers walked picket lines at all seven Coca- Cola Enterprises Inc. bottling plants in the L.A. area Monday in a dispute over wages and rising health insurance costs.

The action, which involved about 1,700 of the company’s 5,000 local employees, was timed just before the start of the heavy-use summer season, but company executives said it had no effect on product deliveries.

The publicly traded company, about 36% owned by Coca-Cola Co., bottles and distributes about 80% of the Coke sold in the U.S.

The work disruption was initially announced as a strike, but as the day wore on, union officials began describing it as a lockout -- a distinction that could entitle workers to unemployment benefits.

Company executives denied they had locked out anyone, and said they merely sent a few workers home with pay when it became clear the strike was imminent.

Both sides said they were talking through the day, and that a resolution could be reached in the next few days.

“We’re close,” said Bob Phillips, a spokesman for the Atlanta-based company. “But obviously as far as those locals are concerned, not close enough.”

Phillips said supervisors were filling in for absent workers, including driving the big rigs that deliver sodas to supermarkets and warehouse stores. Even if the action continued, he said, shelves would be well stocked for the Memorial Day holiday.

“We’ve got a strong contingency plan that we put in place several months ago,” he said. “We’re more than adequately prepared to provide product to our customers.”

Jim Santangelo, president of Teamsters Local 848, however, said the company was bluffing and was facing serious disruption. At a plant in Downey, only five trucks rolled through the gates in five hours, when normally there would be 20 or 25, he said.

A smaller strike was also launched Monday at a bottling plant with an open contract in East Hartford, Conn. Workers in Seattle are considering a walkout when their contract expires next month, Santangelo said.

“We figure if we’re going to get whacked, let’s get whacked together,” he said. Other Teamster-represented bottling plants are under contract and so cannot strike.

The Los Angeles contracts expired in early April, and negotiations have been sporadic since then. Phillips would not give details of the latest offer made in Los Angeles, where Teamster workers generally earn $15 to $20 an hour.

“We’ve always provided excellent and very competitive wages and benefits, and we think the contract offer we’ve made is a very fair and competitive package,” he said. “We’ve really tried to do what is right.”

Santangelo said the company offered to increase total compensation 80 cents an hour each of the first three years and 85 cents an hour for each of the next two. That amount would barely cover increases in healthcare costs, he said. “This company doesn’t want to share its profits,” he said.

Companies struggling with skyrocketing healthcare costs have been plowing more and more raises into insurance premiums, or have hiked co-payments so that wages have actually been flat or falling. That trend has sparked dozens of strikes in recent years.

Pickets on Monday were sometimes boisterous at plants in downtown L.A. and Downey, where they carried signs and briefly blocked the occasional truck. “Stop that scab,” yelled one worker at the L.A. plant on Central Avenue, his sign hoisted above his head, as he raced to meet an incoming driver.

Most workers refused to talk to reporters. Several who did seemed unclear about details of the dispute, although they were alarmed by rumors of significant healthcare cuts, especially for retirees.

Driver Ruben Perez, 26, a father of three, said it was important for him to walk picket lines “because of the benefit for my family and for me.”

Coca-Cola Enterprises stock gained 28 cents to $21.87 on the New York Stock Exchange.