Fort Worth Inc.
Passersby witnessed a motivated group last month.
Fort Worth City Councilman Jared Williams will be among those joining striking Molson Coors local Teamsters in a rally headed by national union leadership on Sunday afternoon.
Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien and General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman will also be with the rank-and-file at noon that day to demand a fair contract and an end to the nearly monthlong strike.
The site of the rally is the Bimbo Bakery parking lot, adjacent to the Molson Coors brewery in the 7300 block of the South Freeway.
About 420 workers walked off the job on Feb. 17 after negotiations on a new labor contract stalled. Workers want larger pay raises than what the company is proposing and the elimination of two-tiered health care and retirement benefits.
Striking workers are receiving $1,000 a week from the union while not on the job.
The national Teamsters have vowed a fight to the finish.
“As long as the profits keep flowing to the top, Molson Coors doesn't give a damn if the workers inside its breweries can afford to take care of their families,” O'Brien, based in Washington, D.C., said when the strike began. “They put pennies on the table for the workers behind these products. They want to strip working families of their health care. The greed and abuse from Molson Coors must end now.”
The union has called the company’s offers “insulting.”
The company has said that it remains “committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to everyone.”
The brewery in Fort Worth is the distribution base of Molson Coors products in the western U.S. Those include Coors Light, Miller Lite, and Topo Chico hard seltzer.
In addition to Williams, in the midst of his second term on the City Council, and Teamsters executives, U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas) and Texas state Rep. Cassandra Hernandez (D-Dallas) will also be in attendance, according to a press release.
The union has asked the public to assist by boycotting Molson Coors products.
The strike began just as Molson Coors, based in Chicago, reported what it called its highest reported dollar results on record.
“Growth is not a strong enough word to describe what we achieved in 2023,” said Gavin Hattersley, Molson Coors CEO, in February, a week before the strike began. “In fact, our 2023 underlying pretax income was higher than we thought it would be, and frankly, higher than anyone I am aware of said it would be – in 2028. So Molson Coors delivered six years of profit growth — six years of growth — in just one year. That, folks, is a new baseline.”
Two years ago, the company made a $65 million investment in a 200,000 warehouse expansion at the Fort Worth plant.