FORT WORTH, Texas — After a three-month hard-fought strike, members of Teamsters Local 997 at Molson Coors Brewery here accepted a three-year contract May 22. Workers said 270 voted yes and 84 voted no. They began returning to work May 29.
The strike began Feb. 17 with 93% of the local rejecting a proposed contract offer. There were 420 workers at the plant. A second proposal was rejected in March. The bosses hired over several hundred temporary workers, all of whom were fired after the contract vote. In the last week of the strike 20 skilled craft workers crossed the picket line.
“I think this was the same contract we just turned down and worse than the first offer,” Teamsters Local 997 member Samuel Bullard told the Militant. “The company was trying to break the union. I will be ready to fight again in the next contract.”
The International union reported the contract included increased wage gains, improved benefits and restored health care for retired members. But workers said the contract also added three more tiers for skilled workers’ pay, changed the retirement age from 55 after 15 years of work to 57 after 20, decreased the amount the company pays on 401(K) and increased the cost of health insurance.
The strike, the local’s first, received solidarity from the labor movement and working people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Hundreds joined a rally to support the strikers March 17. Union flight attendants, members of the United Auto Workers, UNITE HERE, Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union and others joined in picketing.
“Union members were looking at the number of temps who were working in the plant and that skilled workers crossed days before the vote,” Donald Cook, a co-picket line captain during the strike, said.
“Molson Coors used to be a good place to work and you had to know someone to get hired,” Cook said. “It’s not like that anymore. I have seen many families destroyed because you are never home. You don’t even know your kids.”
Workers regularly worked 12-to-16 hour shifts seven days a week. The factory isn’t air-conditioned. “In the summertime, it gets really rough in there,” line mechanic Jeff Pruitt told the Fort Worth Weekly. “It’s extremely hot, and it wouldn’t be so bad if the air wasn’t so stagnant. There’s no ventilation in there.” He said workers have suffered heatstroke in the facility.
Molson Coors bosses reported 2023 was an extremely successful year, taking in $11.7 billion.