Big Mac, burrito fans could suffer from NorCal Teamsters strike

Big Mac, burrito fans could suffer from NorCal Teamsters strike Two hundred union workers of food distributor Martin-Browers in Stockton walked off the job early Monday morning and set up picket lines calling for improvements in health care benefits and safety.
   Workers at the distribution center, which supplies frozen hamburgers, French fries and other products to all 550 McDonald's and 37 Chipotle restaurants in Northern California, have been working without a Teamsters contract since their previous three-year contract expired on Sept. 1.
   The workers, which include truck drivers, office clerks, maintenance personnel and warehouse worker, claim that Martin-Browers representatives are refusing to negotiate in good faith and making unreasonable production demands on facility workers. Teamsters' union members at the facility, who average $21.30 an hour, are also demanding that wages keep pace with inflation.
   A key issue, according to the union, is health care contributions. The workers are balking at Martin-Browers proposals to increase employee health care contributions by several hundred dollars a month and threats to cut 24-hour access to urgent care for on-the-job injuries. According to the union, while the facility operates 24 hours a day, workers injured at night must wait until the morning to see Martin-Bowers' newly designated health care provider.
   'They want us to sacrifice safety for production,' Gary Siegfried, a Martin-Brower truck driver for the past six years, told the Stockton Record on Monday.
   The relationship between workers and management are 'the worst it's ever been,' 25-year veteran warehouseman Allen Lowen told the newspaper. 'We have no access to management. The company says we're overpaid for the area.'
   Union officials reported that while negotiations with the firm continue, the atmosphere at the bargaining table is 'intense.'
   Martin-Bowers, according to the union, has threatened to shutter the facility during the closed-door negotiations, but representatives of the Rosemont, Ill.-based firm deny making such threats.