CLAYCOMO, Mo. — For a town the size of Claycomo, a strike at the Ford assembly plant would hurt the local economy.
One restaurant that would hurt is Ma and Pa’s Kettle. It sees regular business from union workers, who fuel its lunch rush and to-go orders.
“They do a shut down like two weeks out of the year and that hurts us every single time because we lose our orders, to go orders. I mean, every single day we have to-go orders from Ford and then we have again our lunch rush, a lot of them come in,” said co-owner Kayla Berry. “So if they're shut down, I mean, they're not gonna be, not all of them don't live up here. A lot of them live outside of the city. So if they're shut down, we’re not going to have all that business.”
Berry says Ma and Pa’s Kettle is a union supporter. UAW Local 249 members get a free drink when they come in.
“They deserve everything that they want,” said Berry. “I want them to be happy that they support us. So we want to support them in any way that we can.”
As for those regulars, Berry has heard anxious talks at the lunch counter.
“A lot of them are nervous, they don't want to lose out on the money but a lot of them there's a lot of different benefits that they're not getting right now. So it just depends some of them before have it for it but some of them are against it because they don't want to lose out on the money,” said Berry.
As of right now, it is business as usual at the Ford Claycomo plant unless the UAW calls its workers to strike. Currently, they are working under an expired contract.
