Which Pepsi branch do you work for and where are you located?? That seems odd that they would do something like that

Its the ancillary cost of labor that they will save on. Insurance, 401k match(if there is one) Uniforms, general administration cost of employee, added payroll tax, etc.
It all adds up to either huge costs or huge savings.
Furthermore, in general, seasoned employees are usually more reliable, better trained, call in sick less often, just all around better employees. Turn over cost a company a lot of money. With a round of layoffs, even though it was new hires, it sends a message to all that they could be next. Productivity will go up in an effort for those remaining having the will to protect their jobs.
Here something else you may see come your way, unless you are union and have work weeks already established you may see the new company expand their work week to include up to 46 hours as being "regular time".

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Well a 46 hour work week wouldn't hurt me or the other drivers with rural routes... it actually might help out with this fluctuating overtime that we get paid once we go over our 40... most weeks it's painful to see what we were getting per hour for every hour we worked beyond 40 hours

Dr Pepper Snapple in ‘Catbird Seat’ for PepsiCo Talks (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

The above link is an interesting article regarding DPSG's position in the PAS/PBG takeover. Nothing definitive but none the less interesting.

I agree. It puts DPS in a very, very good position. Sell Crush to Pepsi, take back any Dr Pepper or Sunkist franchises and reassign them to their bottling group. The only danger would be in an area with a weak 3rd/4th tier bottler/distributor who simply couldn't handle Dr Pepper - like when RC Bland (Paragould AR) gave up their Dr Pepper franchises. Then I think you would want to put it in the Coke system, who I am sure would pay good money for them. I think it would give the 3rds and 4ths a lot more leverage with ads, displays, shelf space, coolers, vendors, etc. And give the ones who don't do a lot of full service to get into it (Honickman seems to have little to no vending machines, anywhere, for example).

Looks like CCE and PBG/PAS have about the same amount of Pepper volume. Anyone know if any of the PBG/PAS is in major markets/high per cap areas? Atlanta would be one, but I think KO would frown heavily on CCE trying to get those rights. I don't know how big Dr Pepper is in Pittsburgh, Florida, or a big chunk of central CA, but those franchises could also fetch some nice money.

From my experience, Dr Pepper is generally a neglected brand with PBG (don't know about PAS), while it is almost pure gold for some of the indies and smaller distributors out there.

PBG has DP out of the Tulsa, Ok facility. I do not know for sure if it is a high per cap area but I do know that great plains coke in okc is one of the largest volume DP distributors in the nation. There have been several towns in OK over the years that have been deemed the highest per cap ratio in the nation and Tulsa is only about 100 miles away so it should be safe to assume that they would be a relatively high per cap area. other than that I don't know of any PBG areas who distr DP off the top of my head.

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Once you get past Philadelphia Coke, ABARTA Coke (Bethlehem and Coatesville) and CCE-Reading, PBG has Dr Pepper in the rest of the state of PA until you get to the old Cameron Coke territory in southwestern PA (I can't remember who picked up Crystal Soda Water of Scranton's Dr Pepper territory). They also have it in all their territory in MD (and PBV and an indie have it in eastern MD). RC Winchester in two counties in the middle is the exception. Then you get to WV, where DPS BG picks up.

PBG also has it in all of VA, except in RC Winchester and Dr Pepper Staunton territories (the two who still have Dew, besides West Jefferson). PBG Dr Pepper in VA, especially in southeastern PA from Newport News, just doesn't taste right to me.

Coke also has the rights to it in all of NJ and most of NY, except in WNY, where a cadre of indie bottlers (most of who are now part of PBG, I think) have it.

We do a lot of DR.Pepper related promotions as far as pbg is concerned..we have full distribution in our area(south hampton roads) and we sell the brand quite well actually. I could say without dr.pepper in our arsenal we wouldn't get AS good sales as we do now but we could recover if we dropped it but not immediately. As a matter of fact we just got two internal memos from dr.pepper about upcoming displays for a certain grocery chain..pallet drops. Gotta love it.