Around 40 percent of the workforce at Sibanye-Stillwater's platinum and palladium mining operation in southcentral Montana are on strike.
They're protesting proposed contract terms that cover more than 400 members of the local United Steelworkers union. The union says the contract has been under negotiation since April and that the draft increases healthcare deductibles while making cuts to benefits provided under previous contracts.
“We’re trying to hold onto what we have, maintain our benefits," said union president Daniel Beluscak. "It’s a very safety-oriented, stressful job, long, long hard hours underground, and to attack our benefits all at once, it’s hard to handle."
Employees went on strike as of 7am Thursday morning. Workers are taking shifts picketing in front of the United Steelworkers union hall in Columbus, the metallurgical complex and the mine in Nye.
Aven Benner works at the met complex and lives in Billings.
"When you’re increasing all of the costs of my benefits to where it’s costing me more money to come to work, why would I continue to come to work?” she said.
Jordan Goff from Billings says his family relies on the benefits he receives from his job while already dealing with higher costs.
“Those kinds of things just add more stress, more medical bills and whatever, and then the raises barely offset that," he said.
Sibanye-Stillwater management says costs at its Montana operation have increased, and the company can’t afford to pay workers what they have in the past.
Sibanye-Stillwater spokesperson Heather McDowell says the company is willing to sit down with the union to talk, and Beluscak says the union will strike until an agreement is reached.
Sibanye-Stillwater recently appealed a federal trade case they lost in May when the U.S. International Trade Commission determined Russian imports into the U.S. pose little threat to the domestic palladium market.
Sibanye-Stillwater is part of a global mining company headquartered in South Africa, the second largest exporter of palladium globally after Russia. In 2024, Sibanye announced hundreds of layoffs and suffering profits, which it attributed to high costs, a suffering palladium market and competition from Russia.
In May of this year, the International Trade Commission found that the global market and not Russian imports into the United States influences palladium prices. According to a commission report, in 2025 the U.S. produced about 3 percent of global palladium compared to Russia at 44 percent and South Africa at 37 percent.
Sibanye-Stillwater says they disagree with the findings. The company filed a claim with the U.S. Court of International Trade in July to appeal the decision, with briefings scheduled for December.
