FORT WORTH (WBAP/KLIF News ) – Unionized workers at the Molson Coors brewery in Fort Worth are striking amid tense negotiations with their employer over a three-year contract.
Teamsters Local 997 members started picketing outside the brewery on Saturday and Sunday.
There are 420 member workers the facility which makes, packages and warehouses products that include Topo Chico, Simply, Pabst, and Yuengling, among other major beverage brands.
While details of the contract proposals have not been made public, a vast majority of Local 997 Molson Coors Teamsters voted to reject a previous offer.
Workers are looking for increased pay as well as improvements to health and retirement benefits.
In a statement posted on the Teamsters X (formerly Twitter) feed, Teamsters General President Sean M. O’ Brien called for an end to what he called the “greed and abuse from Molson Coors” to end.
“If you want to support these workers when they need it most, do your part and refuse to buy Molson Coors products until they do right by the workforce. Molson Coors is screwing over working people while they give billions to the wealthy on Wall Street. Use your wallet and help the Teamsters stand up to corporate greed,” he said.
The strike comes as Molson Coors reported a fourth-quarter profit of $103.3 million. The Teamsters said the figures are the company’s highest in 19 years.
Moslon Coors issued a statement last week that indicated it was preparing for the impending strike.
““While we respect the Union’s right to strike, we have strong contingency plans in place, and those plans are already well underway. We deliberately built up distributor inventories across the country in recent weeks, our five other U.S. breweries have extra capacity, and we are well equipped to ensure that consumers will be able to buy their favorite Molson Coors products” said the statement. “At this point, the union has not responded to our last offer, which exceeds local market rates for similar unionized roles, but we remain committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to both our employees and to the Fort Worth brewery.”
Earlier this month, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced it would increase future strike benefits to $1,000 per week to Teamster Local 997.
The brewery is located at 7001 South Freeway. It opened in 1969 and became the home of Miller Lite in 1975.
It’s the second strike that impacted the Metroplex in recent months, thousands of workers at the General Motors plant in Arlington secured new contracts with their employers after walking off the job during a nationwide strike last October.
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