A walkout by workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union over pay and benefits marked the first strike in decades against a major California sugar producer.
The ILWU strike at C&H Sugar in Crockett led by Warehouse Local 6 reportedly is over healthcare, retiree benefits, sick leave, overtime rules, and union protections as part of a new three-year contract.
The strike by unionized warehouse employees at the massive Bay Area complex began around mid-June, with about 90–100 workers involved. The historic plant, which famously figured in the “Sugar Wars” of the 1930s, receives rail service from Union Pacific and generates 25,000 truckloads of sugar per year.
American Sugar Refining, parent of C&H, says it offered a 20% wage increase while the union says the company’s concessions are unacceptable. The union has not disclosed its core demands.
Workers say the company proposed cutting five of 10 annual sick days, ending retiree medical benefits, and changing overtime rules so premium pay would start only after 40 hours in a week, according to local reports. The union’s position is that wages were negotiable but core rights and benefits were not.
It’s the first C&H Sugar strike by warehouse workers in decades. The last comparable shutdown at the site was in 2003, when workers walked out in solidarity with sugar employees rather than over their own contract. One account also says some striking workers complained about the use of replacement labor and that the company was trying to get employees to cross the picket line.
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