“The Union has shown a wiliness to pay significantly more for health insurance, but what the Company is demanding is unreasonable.  Additionally, the Union is down to a handful of proposals to reach a fair contract,” Luke Farley of Teamsters Local 175 said. “Meanwhile, company owners Theresa Hammonds-Johnson and Luther Martin Johnson, who haven’t attended a single negotiating session in person since the strike started, continue to make a mockery of the process.”   

The group of nearly 50 Teamsters Local 175 members -- drivers, helpers, and warehouse workers -- went on strike May 12 after a month of meetings failed to result an agreement before the contract expired.

The Beverage Market, which services over 1,900 customers statewide varying from local bars and restaurants to chain convenience stores and grocers and is the sole distributor for Miller-Coors products in several counties throughout West Virginia, has been trying to decrease several employees’ pay, cut paid time off in half, eliminate portions of retirement, and increase health insurance premiums by staggering amounts.

The company, which has not claimed any financial hardship, for all its concessionary proposals, is only offering a five-cent increase for some employees, reduced pay or no raise for other employees, over a two-year period.         

“The Johnsons clearly are not taking negotiations seriously and are showing no regard for the well-being of these workers and their families,” Steve Day, President of Local 175 said. “All we’ve ever asked for was fair treatment in return for a hard day’s work.”

Ian Moore, shop-steward at The Beverage Market and member of Teamsters Local 175 said, “It is clear the owners do not want a contract because we have done everything at the table to try and reach an agreement, but the owners won’t even show up and have a conversation about what is important to them.  We have been on strike for 8 weeks and the Company still has so many open proposals ranging from kicking our spouses off health insurance to insisting that all employees are clean shaven and everything in between.”