Indiana concrete drivers beat union-busting, vote Teamsters at Shelby Materials

Clermont, IN – On November 5, ready-mix concrete drivers at Shelby Materials’ Clermont plant voted 15 to 7 to join Teamsters Local 135. The win came despite an aggressive union-busting campaign by one of central Indiana’s largest concrete producers.

The Shelby Materials drivers organized quietly and kept their campaign under wraps until they demanded recognition, catching the company completely off guard. Shelby management answered with weekly anti-union meetings and a campaign that combined bribes with threats. A strong rank-and-file organizing committee kept the drivers united from the first card signed through election day. When the votes were counted, Shelby management was visibly shaken.

On October 16, Shelby president Matt Haehl announced a $4/hour “market-rate wage increase” for ready-mix workers at eight non-union plants: Beech Grove, Franklin, Kokomo, Lapel, Lebanon, Nashville, Shelbyville, and Westfield. The company said the raise addressed current market wages and its struggle to recruit and retain employees.

Clermont was the only non-union plant left out, even though every condition Shelby cited applies there just as much as the plants receiving the raise.

Local 135 filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The same day, Shelby management put out a letter trying to cover itself, admitting that market conditions in Clermont were the same as the other plants and promising the same raise after the election, regardless of the results.

Teamsters Local 135 already represents Shelby drivers at the company’s Seymour and Columbus plants under a single contract that expires in 2028. Shelby left those drivers out of the $4 raise as well, despite the same market conditions, as well as the same recruiting and retention problems, prevailing there. There are plans for the union and management to discuss the issue further.

The Seymour and Columbus contract includes picket line protection language. As more Shelby plants organize, the company’s union drivers will be in a position to stand with them.

The spark for the Clermont organizing campaign came from Teamsters at Irving Materials Inc. (IMI). Local 135 drivers recently won a contract there with industry-leading pay, health care, and pensions. Word spread fast. Competitors like SRM and Blue Star offered modest wage increases, even while remaining significantly below IMI’s pay rates, while Shelby Materials management told its drivers to kick rocks.

IMI Teamsters won their contract through a year-long internal organizing campaign by Local 135, which presented Indiana’s concrete giant with a credible strike threat. They won without having to use the strike weapon and set a powerful example of union power for workers in the industry. IMI Teamsters greatly assisted their fellow ready-mix drivers at Shelby in their campaign as well by having conversations and giving advice.

Shelby Materials is a large concrete company based in Indiana. Owned by the Haehl family since 1951, it employs nearly 300 employees across more than a dozen Indiana locations. The Indiana Ready Mixed Concrete Association named it 2024 Producer of the Year. As data center projects spring up across the state, which require huge amounts of concrete poured by drivers, Shelby and other concrete producers are seeing business booming.

“Shelby tried to keep the Teamsters out,” noted Dustin Roach, president of Teamsters Local 135 in a statement after the Clermont election victory. “These drivers beat them. Now Shelby can look those drivers in the eye across the bargaining table and answer for every damn dollar they’re worth.”

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