Over seven months ago, on Christmas morning, Mark Nelson, who has worked at Bigfoot Beverages for over 25 years, stood on the picket line with his wife and son. The day before, he had received a letter informing him that his employer-sponsored health insurance would be cut off one week later on New Year’s Day.

“At my age and two years from retirement, it’s surreal,” Nelson says. “It’s not physically hard, but not knowing what the next day brings is mentally tough.”

The strike against Bigfoot Beverages, which distributes Pepsi-brand drinks to many Eugene bars, markets and schools, began in September 2024 after the company moved to eliminate the workers’ pension and replace it with a 401(k). 

In November, the company used replacement workers to hold a decertification vote, stripping the union of official recognition. Despite that, Bigfoot continued filing unfair labor practice charges against the strikers. All of the charges have been dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board. 

Before the strike, workers at Bigfoot Beverages say they were building their futures. Some were planning weddings, others were working toward promotions and a few had started to count down the years to retirement. 

When the strike began, those plans were put on hold. Instead of driving trucks, stocking shelves and working with stores and markets, workers now spent their days on the picket line, fighting to keep the future they had planned for.

Nelson, a University of Oregon graduate, joined Bigfoot’s Springfield vending department in 1999. Back then, he says, former company president Pete Moore promised that workers who stayed loyal wouldn’t have to worry about their future. But now, with Moore’s son, Andy, and Eric Forrest running the company, Nelson says that promise has been broken.

“Now I’m worried about even getting my job back,” Nelson says.

In late April, strikers made an unconditional offer to return to work while a fair contract with a pension was negotiated. In response, Forrest and Moore sent a letter to Teamsters Local 324 reaffirming that the company no longer recognized the union. The company had already hired permanent replacements who “will not be displaced,” the letter said. Strikers would be added to a hiring list, with no guarantee of reinstatement. If they don’t respond to a job offer within 24 hours, the letter said, they would be considered to have voluntarily quit.

Bigfoot’s management is characterizing the protest as an economic strike, which means the jobs of striking workers are not protected. However, the strikers and their union leaders argue that their strike is an unfair labor practices strike, which would guarantee the workers’ right to return to their jobs after the strike ends.

“We walked out to make a point that they cannot continue breaking the law and assume that we’ll come begging for our jobs back,” says merchandising shift captain Rachel Alldredge.

That week, Oregon State Police visited the strikers to enforce a freshly spray-painted yellow line that cuts through where strikers had walked for months in front of Bigfoot’s distributor facility. The new boundary shrunk the picket zone to a strip about 10 feet from McVay Highway — too narrow for tents and deemed too close to the road to safely place a porta-potty.

Moore and Forrest, who declined an interview with Eugene Weekly, disputed any change to the property line. In an email through a Bigfoot spokesperson, they said, “The property line for Bigfoot Beverages has not changed. Clarification of it was detailed to create safety for drivers exiting the property.” 

According to strikers, OSP was the first to inform them that Bigfoot’s property line had shifted, and that the area beyond the paint was no longer theirs to walk. However, no public records show any adjustment to the tax lot’s boundary, as recorded by Lane County or the Oregon Department of Transportation.

 Alldredge, 27, grew up in Idaho and now lives in Eugene. Including her time on strike, she started work as a merchandiser at Bigfoot Beverages just over a year ago. She has now spent more time on the picket line outside than she did working inside.

Before the strike began, she was shadowing drivers and preparing to enter the company’s CDL program. She didn’t necessarily plan to retire from the company, but like many before her, she saw Bigfoot as a stable job with strong benefits. That changed when Bigfoot Beverages moved to eliminate the pension. 

She volunteered early on to be a shift captain for the strike and help coordinate merchandisers on the line. As the strike wore on, her role expanded. Alldredge handles supply runs, works closely with the union leaders, and has become a vocal presence on the line. When Bigfoot invited strikers inside after the union’s return to work offer, she addressed the room, calling out the company’s unlawful response. 

Alldredge has pushed back on a late April Bigfoot press release celebrating what the company called the most diverse workforce in its 78-year history. 

“It took us going on strike and withholding our labor for Bigfoot to finally start hiring women and people of color,” Alldredge says. “They shouldn’t be praised for doing that now. It would’ve happened a long time ago if they actually cared.”

When she started at Bigfoot, Alldredge said she was one of only about nine women in a union position at the Eugene facility. The same press release also accused strikers of “racial and homophobic harassment.”

Alldredge says that throughout the strike, she hasn’t heard anyone make those kinds of comments to anyone inside the facility.

Nelson also sees a different reality on the line. After years of working together, he and his co-workers are now sitting down and sharing stories they have never talked about before: family, struggles and their time at the company. “I’ll remember these guys the rest of my life,” Nelson said. “When a group of people sits down and talks about what they’re going through, you learn a lot about each other.”

Zane Aliperti, 27, grew up in Springfield and now lives in Eugene. By the time the strike began in September, he had worked at Bigfoot Beverages for just under five years, needing only 500 more hours to become officially vested and qualify for pension benefits.

Aliperti had planned to stay with the company and retire through the “84 and out” program, the typical path for Bigfoot workers. Under that system, he could retire at age 53 with full pension benefits after 31 years of service.  

“We used to have this joke, that everywhere else is just training for Bigfoot, because everyone wanted to end here,” Aliperti says. “Because of the pension. Because of the union.”

The pension at Bigfoot Beverages provided fixed retirement benefits and lifetime support for surviving spouses. These guarantees are not offered under the proposed 401(k) plan. The 401(k)’s value depends on market performance, and unlike the pension, it offers no long-term security for families.

Before the strike, Aliperti and his fiancée were planning their future, hoping to marry and buy their first home together. But once the strike started, those goals seemed further out of reach. His fiancée works, but without Aliperti’s full paychecks, the financial stress became too much. With only his $1,000-per-week strike stipend from the union, buying a home wasn’t realistic. They knew they didn’t want to try planning a wedding on just strike pay, so that was also postponed.

“Pretty much everything is on hold,” he says. “We can’t step forward with our life.”

For Aliperti, he says one of the most frustrating parts of the strike has been seeing the company turn its back on the people who built it. He’s watched co-workers who spent decades on the road, in stores and working with customers now be told that what they’ve earned can be taken away. He calls it a “takeaway strike,” saying it’s driven by the company’s greed, not their economic loss.

Bigfoot Beverages is promoting its 401(k) plan as an alternative to the pension, but Aliperti points out that workers always had access to a 401(k) in addition to their pension. Now, the pension is being eliminated.

“It’s not like we were asking for a lot,” Aliperti says, “We weren’t asking for anything more than they’ve already been giving us for the last 57 years. We went back on all of our asks just to keep that [pension].”

Since the beginning of the strike, rather than staying on the main picket line on McVay Highway every shift, Aliperti and a crew of other strikers walk with their signs around Bigfoot delivery trucks as they unload at stores, like Tom’s Market on East 19th Avenue in Eugene, that still receive shipments.

This method puts the strike in front of more people and allows workers to speak directly with business owners. In some cases, Aliperti has talked to store managers who had been told the strike had ended.

After almost a year on strike and no indication that Bigfoot will offer a contract with a pension again, the strikers wait for the NLRB to decide if they can legally return to the jobs they left behind. In the meantime, they’re calling for a boycott of Pepsi products distributed by Bigfoot Beverages, including brands like Ninkasi, Pelican Brewing and King Estate. The full list is at BoycottBigfoot.now.

“There’s not a single person here that would rather be out here than in there,” Aliperti says.

“Stop yelling at us to go back to work,” Alldredge says. “We’re trying.”