ANDERSON — For 40 years, Bret Marsh has worked for Coca-Cola Consolidated in Anderson, delivering soda and other drinks all around the region.
But for the first time in his career, Marsh isn’t showing up to work. Instead, he’s spent more than a week picketing outside the company’s truck lot demanding a better contract.
“This is difficult for me,” he said Thursday. “I don’t think we’re asking anything that’s too far out of reach.”
Forty-eight workers at the facility represented by Teamsters Local 135 went on strike for the first time Sept. 2. Union officials said the company engaged in unfair labor practices, including bargaining in bad faith.
On Thursday, around a dozen Coca- Cola Consolidated employees held signs along the easement in front of the truck lot, where the union brought in a giant inflatable pig smoking a cigar. As Coke trucks continued to pull in to drop off trailers, one worker taunted the drivers through a bullhorn.
“The scabs are back. Go join the other scabs,” he shouted.
The strike comes as union membership in Indiana continues to slump. In 1989, around 21% of Hoosier workers were in a union. That number stood at 8.3% in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Dustin Roach, president of the local Teamster chapter, said negotiations on a new three-year contract fell through after the company brought management to the table who were not authorized to bargain. The former four-year contract expired Aug. 29.
Union members twice voted down proposals by Coca-Cola Consolidated that they say didn’t do enough to improve wages and healthcare benefits offered by similar jobs in the industry.
The union says workers are making less than the living wage for Madison County, which is $28 per hour for a household with two adults and two children, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.
The company says it has been bargaining in good faith throughout the negotiations and “believes it has provided a fair and competitive contract.”
“We don’t believe a work stoppage, led by the union, is in the best interest of our teammates, and the Company will continue to be available to negotiate with the union to reach an agreement,” the company said in a statement.
Roach said union workers are happy to return to the bargaining table, but the company is refusing to start negotiations again.
Adding pressure on the company, the Teamsters have set up picket lines outside two Coke facilities in Ohio. Labor contracts at those locations say workers don’t have to cross a picket line. A majority are refusing to come to work out of solidarity for the strike in Anderson, according to Roach.
Workers on strike in Anderson and those not crossing the picket lines in Ohio are all receiving $1,000 a week from the union. The Teamsters are also helping members who are on strike pay health costs and insurance.
Marsh, the delivery driver, said he just wants to get back to the job he’s done for the last 40 years.
Right now, he said, he’s disappointed in Coca-Cola Consolidated for rejecting workers’ request, but won’t harbor any ill will once a new contract is in place.
“If I go back to work tomorrow, I’m good,” Marsh said. “We just need our time at the table.”
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FPI News reporter Carson Gerber covers healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, immigration … and just about any other topic that’s shaping how we live in Indiana today. Reach him at 765-204-4250 or carson.gerber@fpinews.org.
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