Local News

Strikers Move to Corporate Headquarters

(La Porte, IN) - A worker strike at a manufacturing company in La Porte is taking a different approach today.

 

While nearly 200 employees at Monosol were on the picket line Thursday outside the plant at the Thomas Rose Industrial Park on the city’s east side, a vast majority of the picketers instead went to Monosol’s corporate headquarters in Merrillville to demonstrate earlier this morning.

 

Dustin Roach, the president-elect of Teamsters Local 135, said there’s practically nobody from the company now at the facility in La Porte because of the strike.

 

“We’re going to go there and try to send a message,” he said.

 

Contract talks have broken down and no date has been set to resume negotiations.

 

Per Roach, the biggest obstacle in coming to terms on a new contract for workers is years of forced overtime.  He said 60 hours or more a week regularly is taking a toll on the workers physically and emotionally from lack of quality time at home.

 

Roach went on to state that the company is offering to freeze forced overtime for a year along with a 17-percent increase in pay over a four-year period, while noting that employees want a pay increase equal to the rate of inflation.

 

The president-elect also assured that the workers are receiving strike benefits to help make ends meet.  The benefits are not as much as their pay, but other unions are beginning to contribute money to increase the amount of said benefits during the strike, he said.

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