Strike averted at Archer Daniels Midland

CEDAR RAPIDS — Teamsters Local 238 signed a new three-year agreement with Archer Daniels Midland today, averting a strike at the multinational food processor’s facility in Cedar Rapids.

The union’s previous contract with ADM, based in Chicago, had expired at midnight today. The new agreement was effective immediately.

Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of local 238, said in a statement the new agreement includes an immediate 6 percent across-the-board raise for the first year, a $5,000 ratification bonus, 40 hours of sick leave, eight additional hours of personal leave and “additional premium pay for many classifications.”

“Although we would like to see higher wages overall in the industry, we have made gains in working standards that helped avert a job action” Case said.

“We are pleased that union members accepted the extremely competitive proposal we put forward and we were able to reach a satisfactory resolution,” an ADM spokesperson said in an email to The Gazette.

The ADM facility employs 450 workers with an additional 200 to 300 skilled-trade contractors also on site.

If the union were to have gone on strike, it would have become the second ongoing work action in Cedar Rapids. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 100G’s strike against Ingredion now is in its 13th week.

Ingredion and the union were set to resume face-to-face negotiations today.

Comments: (319) 398-8307; michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com