Workers’ Message to CEO Chapman: “Keep Angelus Can Open!”

The United Steelworkers (USW) today held simultaneous candlelight vigils at Barry-Wehmiller’s corporate headquarters near St. Louis and the company’s Angelus Can facility near Los Angeles, where workers were told last month that their jobs are being eliminated as the company shifts production to non-union facilities in Ohio.

USW District 12 Director Bob LaVenture said that USW Local 8957 members from California traveled to St. Louis specifically to encourage Barry-Wehmiller Chairman and CEO Robert Chapman to keep the profitable Angelus Can facility open.

“Steelworkers at Angelus Can have spent generations making machinery for customers such as Pepsi, Campbell Soup, ConAgra, Del Monte, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing and Nestle,” LaVenture said. “We cannot allow the proud tradition of quality and profitability to end in Vernon ... more