Just two weeks after the victory in Coca-Cola Multan [1], workers at Coca-Cola Pakistan's Faisalabad plant had cause to celebrate yet again today, as their union was officially registered.
The union, formed at the beginning of June, was organised with the support of the IUF-affiliated National Federation of Food, Beverage & Tobacco Workers (FFBTW). This marks another major breakthrough for Coca-Cola workers in Pakistan.
Efforts to organize a union at Coca-Cola Faislabad in 2002 met with severe repression and subsequently the union ceased to exist. Eight years later the workers at the Faisalabad bottling plant fought back, organizing a democratic union with the assistance of the Coca-Cola Karachi union and the newly formed union at Gujranwala [2].
Now five Coca-Cola unions are members of the IUF-affiliated FFBTW: the Coca-Cola Beverages Staff and Workers' Union, Karachi; the Coca Cola Beverages Employees' Union, Rahim Yar Khan; the People's Employees' Union Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan (CCBPL) Ltd Multan; the CCBPL Gujranwala Workers' Union and the Coca-Cola Beverages Employees Union, Faisalabad.
The elected officers of the Coca-Cola Beverages Employees Union Faisalabad are: Muhammad Farooq, Chairperson; Amanat Ali, President; Muhammad Akram, Vice-President; Muhammad Israr, General Secretary; Riaz Ahmed Siddiqui, Joint Secretary; Abdul Hameed, Information Secretary; and Shahzad Hussain as Treasurer.