Four months into a strike at its Little Village plant, Oak Brook-based Mauser Packaging Solutions says it is “tentatively” planning to shutter the facility.
The Mauser workers have been striking for improved working conditions and contract language that would protect them from workplace immigration raids — at a time when Chicago is in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The workers, most of them Latino and many of them immigrants, are members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 705.
Mauser says it is planning to shutter the facility, where some workers have labored for years, on Nov. 21. Around 160 workers will be impacted by the closure.
In an email that did not explicitly mention the strike, company spokesperson Kimberly Braam said the plant was facing a “range of operational challenges” and that keeping it open was “no longer aligned” with the company’s “broader strategy to optimize resources and efficiently allocate capital.”
“Market dynamics have shifted, including reduced demand and heightened competition,” Braam said. “Recent changes in business volume have been effectively managed through other Mauser locations.”
The Teamsters’ chief negotiator, Nico Coronado, said he doesn’t buy it.
“We can’t think of anything other than retaliation,” he said.
Coronado said the union is seeking an injunction from the National Labor Relations Board to prevent the closure of the plant. The NLRB has currently discontinued most of its operations during the government shutdown that began last week, according to agency documents.
The Mauser workers, who repurpose steel drums used to transport chemicals, first walked off the job in early June.
In interviews with the Tribune from the picket line, they described working around chemicals in poorly ventilated conditions. They aren’t always given sufficient uniforms, they said, which means they sometimes have to work in their own clothes, and then take them home to wash with their families’ laundry.
The workers were also asking for the company not to allow federal immigration officers onto its property unless the agents had a signed judicial warrant.
The company has consistently refused to agree to that provision, the union has said, and workers rejected the company’s last, best and final offer in August.
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Dante Woodson, 22, has worked at the plant for around a year. He’ll need to find a new job to support himself as he works his way toward earning an HVAC and electrical technician certification, he said.
But for some of his co-workers, Woodson said, the closure will hit harder. “They have family on the line,” he said.
In a statement provided by the company, CEO Mark Burgess said that “closing this facility was not an easy decision, especially knowing the effect it has on our team members, their families, and the surrounding community.”
Mauser sent letters in late September to workers notifying them of the planned closure at the Little Village plant, the Teamsters said.
“If the Company and the Union are unable to reach a resolution that avoids the permanent closure of the facility, the Company will permanently lay off employees, including you, beginning on November 21, 2025, or the 14-day period beginning on that date,” one letter reviewed by the Tribune read.
Braam did not elaborate on what kind of resolution would be sufficient to prevent the closure of the plant. Coronado said the union understood the notice to suggest that the union would need to accept the final offer that workers voted to reject this summer.
Mauser, which says it has about 11,000 employees around the world, was formed in 2018 by a merger of four companies. At the time, it said it had a consolidated revenue of about $4 billion.
Even though the closure is occurring amid an ongoing strike, the burden would be on the union to prove the company is closing the 3201 S. Millard Ave. for reasons other than legitimate business ones, said Bob Bruno, director of the labor studies program at the University of Illinois.
“The law really does favor the employer,” he said.
In addition to being currently paralyzed by the government shutdown, the NLRB has been significantly weakened since earlier this year, when Trump fired board member Gwynne Wilcox in an unprecedented move that left the board without a quorum.