Dive Brief:
- Teamsters-affiliated workers who were on strike for two weeks at an Amcor flexible food packaging production facility in Des Moines, Iowa, are heading back to work Wednesday. The 103 employees — of approximately 135 total salaried or hourly employees that Amcor says work there — reached a new contract with the company on Saturday.
- The contract involves a 15% wage increase over the next four years, along with shift differential (extra compensation for night work), an extra holiday and an increased retirement contribution. Jesse Case, the secretary-treasurer and principal officer of Teamsters Local 238 in Iowa, said this represents the best-ever contract for workers at this location.
- “After additional negotiations in good faith, we have jointly reached a comprehensive agreement that continues to reward our Des Moines plant colleagues with industry-leading wages and benefits,” an Amcor Flexibles North America spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to continuing to work together at our Des Moines plant.”
Dive Insight:
Workers at the Des Moines site help produce packaging for food products like Capri Sun juice drinks, Slim Jim meat snacks and Snack Pack pudding cups.
Teamsters Local 238, which the organization says is Iowa’s largest local union, decided to strike at this location for the first time after the previous three-year contract lapsed in recent months and negotiations with Amcor did not meet the union’s standards on pay and benefits, Case said.
The strike began July 29 and garnered support from other union-affiliated workers in the region, according to local news reports. Amcor activated a customer supply plan during the work stoppage, which it said included contingency staffing to enable uninterrupted plant operation. “There was no disruption to our customers nor to supermarket shelves,” the spokesperson said.
Teamsters said none of its members crossed the picket line. “They were willing to continue to negotiate but they were going to do it while on the picket line,” Case said. He described the resulting wage increase as “historic.”
Amcor’s annual revenue is more than $14 billion and “it's shameful that workers have to strike in order to make modest gains at the bargaining table,” Case said. Amcor is scheduled to report earnings for the 12 months that ended June 30 on Wednesday.
Amcor said on a May earnings call that weakened demand prompted it to increase the number of full or partial plant shutdown days and cut almost 1,000 positions across the company, with the intent to eliminate another 200 in the subsequent quarter.
Case said this was Local 238’s first experience with Amcor. Teamsters also has members at Amcor's Centerville, Iowa, location. The union is looking ahead in advance of the current contract's expiration.
Packaging companies have faced many of the same labor challenges as others in the manufacturing industry amid changes in demand and the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other strikes publicized in the packaging sector this year have included Teamsters members in the Philadelphia area going on strike at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in April, according to local news reports. United Steelworkers-affiliated workers at a Graphic Packaging paper mill in Domino, Texas, reached a contract with the company in March after rejecting a previous draft in February, which had paved the way for a possible strike.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to specify that a broader description of shift differential was not referring to the new contract at the Des Moines location and to clarify the nature of future contract discussions in Centerville.
