Strike by Northern Illinois Bay Valley Foods workers enters ninth week
By
George Gallanis
25 January 2018
On Tuesday, some 94 workers at the Bay Valley Foods in Pecatonica, Illinois, 15 miles west of Rockford, began the ninth week of their strike against the food distributing company. Striking outside of the Bay Valley Foods plant for nearly 24 hours a day for the past 75 days, the workers have tenaciously withstood the bitter cold of the Midwest’s ongoing winter.
Teamsters Local 754 called the strike on November 12 after negotiations, which began in May, failed to produce an agreement they could get rank-and-file workers to accept. Workers are striking to oppose increases in health care costs, win improved pension funding and block Bay Valley Foods from moving the plant to Iowa, according the union.
Union and Bay Valley Foods representatives have met with federal mediators several times since the strike began but, according to media reports, both sides cannot reach an agreement on health care costs.
Bay Valley Foods, which produces private label foods and food service goods, is a subsidiary of TreeHouse Foods, a multinational food processing company, ranked 427 on the Fortune 500 list in 2017. In 2014, it brought in $2.9 billion of revenue. Notably, from 2005 to 2007 former first lady Michelle Obama served on the board of directors.
According to Indeed.com, a machine operator for Bay Valley Foods makes $13.28 an hour, a senior machine operator makes $12.83 an hour and an assembler makes $11.18.
Ben, one of the striking workers, told the World Socialist Web Site workers had walked out because “Treehouse Foods has gutted our current contract and wants to implement measures that would in essence break the union.” He said workers…