Retrospect: Glass workers went on strike

Union workers at a Dunkirk glass factory went on strike 40 years ago this week.

Members of Local 115 of the American Flint Glass Workers Union went on strike against Kerr Glass Manufacturing (now Ardagh Group) at midnight on Sept. 15, 1977, after national negotiations between the union and an association of glass companies were unsuccessful.

Union members had been working under a two-week contract extension that expired at midnight Sept. 15, according to Bob Urick, who was president of Local 115.

The 31 workers, who were all moldmakers at the factory, went on strike because of the size of the wage increase that was offered. The American Flint Glass Workers Union had asked for a $2.65-per-hour raise over the three-year life of the contract while the Glass Packaging Institute (GPI) offered $1.75 per hour.

Urick had heard late on Sept. 15 from Eugene Bowling, who was the American Flint Glass Workers Union second international vice president, that the union’s executive board had voted to go on strike.

Pickets were at both entrances of Kerr Glass by 5 a.m. the next morning.

“Enough of our GBBA employees, who have a contract, are coming in to permit us to man our production lines,” Robert Countryman, who was manager of personnel and public relations, said after the strike began.

Countryman said no further contract negotiations were expected at that time.