Word: cola
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...real-life corporate drama in Atlanta may not have given much competition to TV's Dallas, but it was intriguing nonetheless. The story began a year ago with an unexpected exit at the Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft drink maker (1979 sales: nearly $5 billion). Though he was five years away from retirement age, the company's popular president J. Lucian Smith abruptly quit. A genial Mississippian who died in July at 61 from a heart attack, Smith had reportedly told friends that his job "just wasn't fun any more." Some insiders...
...company's 15 directors were summoned by Austin to a special meeting. There they elected a new president: Roberto C. Goizueta, 48, a Cuban-born and Yale-educated chemical engineer who has worked for the company, mainly in technical and administrative jobs, since 1954. Most Coca-Cola watchers assumed that it would be a while before he would be declared the successor of Austin. At 65, Austin had been Coke's chief for 14 years and had already had his retirement postponed for a year, evidently to allow time to groom a successor. But last week Austin sprang...
...apparently become disturbed by the company, which remains strong but faces some problems. These include a sluggish profit performance (sales were up by nearly 19% in the first half of 1980, but net income rose by only 7.1%) and a challenge in the domestic market from archcompetitor Pepsi-Cola; Pepsi now outsells Coke in supermarkets, although Coke leads in vending machine and fountain sales...
Some corporations are now challenging COLA payments. Steel companies last spring got the United Steelworkers to forgo a 320-an-hour COLA increase in order to pay for higher pensions for retired union members. The copper industry was willing to accept a strike this month when the union would not agree to divert a 29?-an-hour COLA increase to help pay for its benefit funds...
...salary escalator ride. In November, the Chicago Transit Authority sought to alter a contract provision that guaranteed its bus drivers virtually complete wage protection against inflation. The drivers struck for four days, but went back to work under a court order. They were finally forced to accept a new COLA agreement that raised salaries by only 55% of the inflation rate...