DENVER (AP) -- Locked out union members at a Graphic Packaging Corp. plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., called Thursday for a boycott of Coors beer, the primary product of one of Graphic Packaging's major customers.þþCoors family members are major stockholders of Graphic Packaging, based in Golden, Colo., and its chief executive officer is Jeffrey Coors.þþAFL-CIO and PACE International Union also urged members to boycott companies whose products are packaged in cartons from Graphic Packaging, including General Mills, Quaker Oats and Kraft Foods.þþGraphic Packaging and union members have been at odds over proposals for overtime work and pension benefits.þþ``We're disappointed they would spend their efforts targeting third parties that are really unrelated to the dispute and have no control over the outcome,'' Graphic Packaging investor relations director Gardner Edgarton said.þþCoors' beer operations use products from Graphic Packaging but do not receive materials from the Kalamazoo plant, Coors spokeswoman Aimee Valdez said.þþPACE vice president Bill Gibbons said the goal was to get union members back to work.þþThe Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union Local 6-1010 represents 429 workers in Kalamazoo whose contract expired July 23. Members voted to reject a new contract proposal from the company and voted to strike. But Graphic Packaging locked out workers July 27 before a strike was called.þþThe company estimated it incurred $4.5 million in pretax costs in the third quarter due to the dispute.þþGibbons said the company wanted to be able to ask employees to work overtime: up to 16-hour days, seven days a week and holidays. Previously, the company could only seek volunteers to work overtime, Edgarton said.þþGibbons said the company also proposed changing rules on premium pay for working weekends and giving new workers lower pension benefits than existing workers.þþ``We said that with minor modifications, we could have an agreement,'' Gibbons said. ``They just rejected that out of hand.''þþEdgarton said the company has similar contracts with PACE at other plants and that the company has continued to negotiate in good faith.þþManagement and replacement workers have been filling jobs at the plant, and union workers have been getting $60 a week in lockout benefits, Gibbons said.þþ``It's been a terrible holiday,'' Gibbons said.þþNo date has been set for the sides to meet again.þþShares of Graphic Packaging closed down 8 cents at $5.56 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.þþþ
Source: NY Times
