Employees at Coca Cola in Beckley, WV voted to join Teamsters Local 175 early this year. After 5 months of negotiations between the TeamstersUnion and Coca Cola, the parties have been able to reach an agreement on a number of issues that would become part of a new contract. However, those negotiations came to a halt on Friday afternoon when the Company informed the Union they were unwilling to make any changes to their health insurance plan which includes outrageously high deductibles as well as co pays for the newly organized workers. To put it in perspective, the company wants the Beckley employees to pay 2-3 times more for a health insurance plan than other unionized employees in the State. Meaning those employees could be subject up to $12,000 per year of out of pocket expenses. 

Teamsters Local 175 President Steve Day said, “It is outrageous that this Company expects their employees in Beckley to pay 2-3 times more for health insurance benefits including deductibles and out of pocket expenses than other unionized locations across West Virginia. Coca Cola is treating their employees at the newly organized Beckley branch like second class citizens. These members are simply looking for the Company to provide them with similar benefits that other unionized Coca Cola employees in this State enjoy.”

“The cost to the Company for equal treatment of their Beckley employees would only result in a drop in the bucket in terms of financial cost, as evidenced by the statement of J. Frank Harrison III, Chairman and CEO of the Company. Earlier this year he was quoted as saying “In 2023 we achieved new levels of success across our key financial metrics. We achieved 834 million dollars in operating profit, generated record operating margins and hit our highest level of operating cash flow.”

Donnie Perdue, Teamsters Local 175 Vice President said “The real reason the Company does not want to agree to provide these employees with the same levels of insurance cost is because they don’t want other non union workers in the State to know how unfairly they are being treated.”

Teamsters Local 175 represents Coca Cola employees in Bluefield, Charleston, Logan, Parkersburg and Clarksburg.