(Miguel Malo/Getty Images)
The National Food, Beverage, Wine, Spirits and Allied Industries Workers' Union has lost an appeal to invalidate the redundancies of around 368 jobs made by the South African branch of soft drinks giant Coca-Cola's largest bottling partner on the continent.
The union was seeking to appeal against an earlier Labour Court decision which had ruled in favour of Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA), a local subsidiary of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA). The workers had been made redundant in 2019 after South Africa's controversial sugar tax and other economic headwinds adversely affected their business.
The union's initial central argument against the redundancies was that they were unjustified because they breached certain conditions attached to the regulatory approval of the 2016 merger that led to the formation of CCBSA. The union also argued that there was no sufficient commercial reason for the redundancies and that CCBSA had unfairly applied its criteria for selecting those affected by the redundancies.
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