Michael Pascoe writes:

Being dumped by Sydney ABC radio in favour
of Virginia Trioli can’t have been easy for Sally Loane last year – but she might
have walked into a worse job as head flack for sugary drink pusher, Coca-Cola
Amatil.


The Daily Telegraph‘s editorial team is taking aim at the local Coke franchise for
the legal job it’s done on one of its delivery men who was shot five times in
the line of duty.

It’s a grubby story of the multi-national screwing
one of its workers. After winning $2.9 million in damages after the 1997 attack, Coke this week successfully
appealed and the victim, Craig Pareezer, has been ordered to pay back the
$560,000 he had already received.

Pareezer is unable to work, has had a life
of surgical operations since the shooting and is facing more. Now he’ll lose
his house as the $560,000 has already been spent on various costs.

And it’s worse than it sounds. Pareezer had
told Coke the Werrington TAFE was not safe after he had previously been robbed
there. He had refused to restock the machine, but Coke insisted when another
worker was unavailable. The SMH reports:

The court (of Appeal) found that
Coca-Cola Amatil was not liable because any extra precautions it could have
taken to protect fillers would not have prevented the “opportunistic”
attack. This was despite Justice Peter Young noting a submission that the company
had “acted to protect its money, recognising the risk, but had done
virtually nothing to secure the safety of the filler.”

Mr Pareezer was shot in the head, chest, stomach, leg and
hand as he
restocked the vending machine, at Werrington TAFE, in February 1997. He
had been mugged and seriously injured at the TAFE in 1995, and had
taken
his wife, Suzanne, and his son Scott, then 8, with him on the day
because he
was “concerned about going to the Werrington TAFE site alone”,
Justice Young said.

So what’s the best Sally can come up with
after Coke stripped its crippled worker of compensation?“A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Amatil would only say it would ‘continue
to abide by the court’s ruling’.”