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Rich Company Wants Members to Pay for Health Care
August 15, 2005
Teamsters who bottle and deliver
Pepsi products in Southern New Jersey have been out on strike since August 13
after talks broke down over health care issues. Harold Honickman, the owner of
the Pepsi plant in Southern New Jersey, wants workers to pay more than $100 per
person each month for health care coverage.
“It's outrageous that the owner of this company would ask our hardworking
members to shell out money for health care,” said Joe Brock, President of Local
830 in Philadelphia. “The company is claiming it has an economic need, but
Honickman is one of the wealthiest people in the United States.”
Honickman was on the 2004 Forbes wealthiest Americans list as being worth more
than $800 million due to his ownership of Canada Dry and Pepsi bottling and
delivery plants in Southern New Jersey. According to news sources, Honickman’s
father engineered the soft drink franchises for his son in the late 1940s, and
his wife’s father built a state-of-the-art bottling plant for his son-in-law a
decade later.
“We will picket in front of the facility until this dispute is resolved,” Brock
said. “We have not had to pay these high health care costs before, and the
company isn’t offering an equal wage increase. So where’s the incentive for us?
We just want to be treated fairly.”
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