Stillwater Mine workers plan to strike over contract dispute

A union representing employees of the Stillwater Mine, an underground palladium mine in south-central Montana, and Columbus Metallurgical Complex, a smelter and refinery, plans to strike starting at 7 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3, citing failed contract negotiations.  

The United Steelworkers Union 11-0001, which represents about 420 Stillwater and metallurgical complex employees, notified Sibanye-Stillwater, the South African company that owns both entities, of the strike on Tuesday after the union rejected several contract proposals. 

Andrew Cameron, an underground miner and member of the negotiating committee, told Montana Free Press Wednesday that the contract dispute centers on employee health benefits and pay incentive structures. He said the union voted to strike because Sibanye-Stillwater failed “to bargain in good faith.”

“We aren’t asking for anything more than what we’ve had,” he said. “We’re fighting for the same benefits we’ve had for years.”

Sibanye-Stillwater spokesperson Heather McDowell wrote in an email to MTFP that the company has been negotiating with the union for more than four months and that the proposed contract includes a 5% wage increase for 2026. She said the proposed contract comes as the price of palladium, a rare metal used in automotive exhaust systems and electronics, has declined. 

“Current metal prices mean that the business is, at best, operating at break-even levels,” she wrote. “On some days, we are operating at a loss.”

THE DISPUTE

Cameron said the proposed contract would increase maximum out-of-pocket and employee health expenses and insurance deductibles and limit short-term disability coverage. Access to affordable health care, he said, is essential given the hazardous nature of the job.

“I go some place no human has been before, drill holes and then blast the ground,” he said of his work. “It’s very hazardous, and a lot of our job is extremely physically demanding, not to mention the contaminants in the air we’re breathing.”

In 2025, a worker died in an electrical incident at Stillwater Mine. It was the fourth fatality at the underground mine in four years, including a 2023 machinery accident and a 2021 underground collision.

McDowell said Sibanye-Stillwater is self-insured and pays out-of-pocket claims up to $300,000. She said the company spends about $30 million on employee health care costs per year in Montana, and that Sibanye-Stillwater has proposed to increase the family deductible from $500 per year to $1,000 in 2027, $1,200 in 2028, and $1,400 in 2029.

“In order to keep the PPO [preferred provider organization] plan functioning with its high costs, we simply must charge more for it, as do all other U.S. employers for which data is available,” she wrote in an email Wednesday. 

Regarding disability leave, McDowell said Sibanye-Stillwater has historically offered 180 days of 100% pay. 

“We cannot find another single employer in the U.S. who offers that benefit,” she wrote, adding that short-term disability benefits under the proposed contract would change to 80% pay for the first 90 days and 67% pay for the second 90 days for workers with five or more years of employment. 

Referencing the declining costs of palladium, McDowell said Sibanye-Stillwater “simply cannot continue to offer benefits that are far above national and industry norms where we are struggling to keep our operations going.”

Cameron told MTFP that a proposed pay incentive structure would discourage workers from reporting on-the-job injuries and environmental spills. 

“The fact that we would be penalized for reporting environmental spills is appalling,” he told MTFP over the phone while buying strike supplies at a hardware store in Columbus. 

McDowell said the proposed contract’s incentive structure has a “higher budgeted total payout than our historic one and will be split more evenly amongst all hourly employees.”

‘THIS IS SCARY’

Reached by phone Wednesday evening, McDowell said the dispute comes down to change. 

“If we’re going to survive, we’re going to have to make changes,” she said. 

Keilee Stratton, who was laid off from the mine in 2024, said her husband, brother-in-law and brother work at Stillwater Mine. The decision to strike, she said, comes with risk. 

“Nobody wants to go on strike,” she said. “This is scary to have people walking away from their paychecks. We have families, we have groceries and kids. No one is doing this because they’re greedy. It’s because they have to decide where the line is.”

Sibanye-Stillwater, an international mining conglomerate, purchased the Stillwater mine in 2017. In September 2024, Stillwater cut production and laid off 700 workers, citing the declining cost of palladium. In December 2024, Montana’s Department of Labor and Industry received a $3.5 million federal grant to assist newly unemployed mine workers.