by Sarah Thomack
St. Joseph Post
Workers at Silgan Containers in St. Joseph are on strike this week.
Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 2 Business Manager Greg Chastain says a contract proposal was almost unanimously rejected on July 6th and the strike started at 6 p.m. on July 18th.
“There’s several issues that’s behind it. Number one, the company wants to strip the members of most of their seniority rights, they want to change their work schedule… and put in a totally new system, which would upend a lot of our member’s lives,” Chastain says. “Right now the members have the 401k (plan) with the Sheet Metal Workers Local 2, it was moved to our plan eight years ago from Silgan… and now they’re trying to get that back and the members don’t want to move it, they’re happy where they’re at.”
Chastain says no progress was made during an online meeting with the company on Monday and they are anxious to get back to the table and start bargaining again.
There are approximately 130 workers on strike, taking shifts throughout the week to picket outside the St. Joseph location.
Silgan Containers did not have a comment and at the time this article was published, Silgan Holdings had not returned a request for comment.