Headline News
AkzoNobel Workers Choose Teamsters
They mix bold browns, striking siennas and glistening golds. The 37 paint mixers who work at AkzoNobel in Salem, Oregon, bring colors to life through manufacturing paint products. Meanwhile, the color was being stripped from their lives through benefit reductions, stagnant wages and recent management changes. They had tried to organize several times before, but this time they were not going to be deterred.
“I wanted to join the Teamsters since I started here,” said Adam Bach, an 11-year paint mixer.
Bach’s father worked for UPS for about 30 years, and Bach said seeing the Teamsters help his father over the years made him realize that he and his co-workers needed the Teamsters at AkzoNobel.
“This is a huge international company based in the Netherlands,” said Chris Muhs, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 324 in Salem. “The biggest emphasis is on fair treatment and improving their health and welfare and retiree coverage. They have a 401(k) now and a couple guys there have over 25 years of service without much to show for it.”
Mike Brennan, a paint mixer at AkzoNobel, admits he hadn’t put a lot of thought into having a union. However, after recent changes in management, Brennan was fired from 13 years of service with the company. After he was fired, he said his co-workers were angry and decided not to attend a company-sponsored picnic. With the company picnic canceled due to lack of participation, Brennan organized his own at the same scheduled location.
“I decided let’s have our own company picnic. It was my company picnic without the company!” Brennan said of the pictured event.
On a more serious note, Brennan quickly came to see the need for organizing and is happy his co-workers stood together for a successful vote in favor of Teamster representation.
“This is to protect the rest of my fellow employees. I just don’t want to see this happen to anyone else,” Brennan said.
Local 324 is looking forward to starting contract negotiations, and even without having a contract yet, the AkzoNobel Teamsters are feeling positive.
“Now we have someone on our side,” Bach said.