“I gotta choose between gas and bread for my kids. Their exact words [are], ‘Don’t chase the inflation.’ That’s … I don’t even know what to say to that.”
That’s Dan Derby, a quality inspector at packaging company Pactiv Evergreen in Cedar Rapids and the UAW Local 1024 vice chair. He’s worked at the company for 11 years.
But he and the 54 other skilled workers at the plant are tired of inflation eating up their paycheck. They’re pushing for wages that better reflect the value of their work.
Douglas Suchomel is a machine assembler at the plant. In his seven years at Evergreen, he’s worked under three different owners.
“And in this most recent contract being with Novalex, we’re seeing a definite change in how they’re willing to treat us,” Suchomel told me on the strike line outside the plant this week.
That change, said nine-year Evergreen worker Matt Goodell, has not been a good one.
“Novolex is a garbage company,” Goodell said. “They definitely don’t value their employees by any means. So we’re out here striking.”
The workers’ contract with the company expired July 16, with both sides far apart on some items, including wages. So the workers voted to strike, and that began July 28.
“The membership spoke pretty loudly that they weren’t happy with the offer that the company was giving them,” said Heather Keag, the UAW International rep who works with Local 1024’s Evergreen workers.
“They are very adamant that they have been behind in their wages for the last couple contracts, and they just want to be caught up to the regular cost of living with all the inflation and everything we have,” she told me. “So they’re ready to stick it out.”
That fight, said Goodell, is bigger than Evergreen.
“Corporate greed’s gotten out of hand,” he said. “They keep bragging about how much we make them, and they don’t want to help us out by any means.”
“We’re just trying to make a decent living; that’s it,” he added. “[The] middle class is pretty much getting wiped out, and it’s horrible. So we’re fighting for the middle class to keep it alive.”
