Union Wins Governance Change at Coke and Calls Directors to Task at CCE WASHINGTON, April 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters' General Fund's shareholder proposal calling for an independent Chairman at the Coca-Cola Company [NYSE: KO] received 28 percent support of shares cast at the company's annual meeting last week. Yesterday the company announced it would amend its bylaws to separate the positions of CEO and Chairman of the Board. "We believe that this governance change will mark a turning point for the Coca-Cola Company," said C. Thomas Keegel, General Secretary-Treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "After years of declining investor confidence, lagging financial performance, and a steady churn of top executives lavished with excessive payouts despite performance failures, this reform, we hope, will bring an end to management dominance of the company's board of directors. We urge the board to select a true independent chair to represent the interest of shareholders." While Coke has been responsive to shareholder concerns on governance and executive pay issues in recent years, its top bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises [NYSE: CCE] continues to turn a deaf ear to investors. For five consecutive years, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' General Fund has proposed a resolution calling on the Board to allow shareholders to vote on certain executive severance packages. Each year the proposal receives approximately 30 percent support of the total shares cast which represents an approximate majority of the non-insider holdings including those of the Coca-Cola Company. This week 32 percent of voting CCE holders supported the proposal. "Since we began raising this issue, CCE has had a revolving door of executive leadership each cashing out extraordinary severance packages despite lackluster performance," Keegel said. When former CEO John Alm left CCE in December 2005 after serving only two years as CEO and overseeing lagging sales and earnings growth and poor stock performance, Alm was rewarded with a severance package worth more than $13 million plus healthcare. In awarding this package, the Board ignored its own severance guidelines established by the Compensation Committee exceeding the maximum allowable -- by more than 50 percent. "The board's inaction in heeding shareholder concerns leaves investors no options but to withhold support from Directors next year," Keegel said. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents more than 1.4 million hard-working men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. DATASOURCE: International Brotherhood of Teamsters CONTACT: Galen Munroe of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, +1-202-624-6904, Web Site: http://www.teamster.org/

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