Hartford Courant ^
Both the Teamsters and Coca-Cola agree that health insurance costs $14,898 a year per employee at the East Hartford bottling plant.
But the two sides don't agree how that cost is distributed, making it hard to see how they can reach a new contract where health insurance costs are a major sticking point.
About 350 union members have been striking for two weeks after about seven months of negotiating.
Teamsters, who work as drivers, in soda bottling operations and in the warehouse, make about $20 an hour, and their health insurance costs another $7.16 an hour.
In the last contract, Teamsters spokesman Chris Roos said, the company and the Teamsters agreed how much of the increase in compensation would go toward wages and how much toward medical and dental insurance.
But Coca-Cola is insisting that the company pays the whole cost of health insurance and that union members must now pick up part of the expense.
...
No new negotiating sessions have been scheduled since the strike began. The next meeting is on June 12.
The Teamsters union had also asked the National Labor Relations Board to insert itself into the contract dispute, arguing that the company is not revealing enough information about its new alternate distribution plans, which union members fear could eliminate jobs. Coca-Cola has said no jobs will be lost as a result of the changes.
Roos said under the new arrangements, some grocery chains could pick up their own Coca-Cola products instead of having them delivered.
The NLRB investigated the union's claim, and John Cotter, deputy regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Hartford, said that although "we believe there is a potential for merit finding," the agency is not issuing a complaint yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at courant.com ...
I saw a single Coke striker standing by a intersection in Massachusetts
yesterday. No honks of support were heard. 
