Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden has stopped paying the employer share of health benefits for employees who have been on strike since early August, the nonprofit confirmed Thursday in a statement.

The Henrico County, Va., attraction said workers still reporting to their posts remain on the employer-paid plan. The move escalates a labor dispute that began after employees represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers voted to unionize in November 2024 and have yet to reach a first contract.

What does the change mean for striking workers?

A garden spokesperson wrote that "the law does not require employers to continue paying wages or unaccrued benefits to striking workers who are not actively working." The garden first warned employees earlier this summer that a strike could affect medical benefits, the statement said.

Coverage terms during the work stoppage:

• Striking employees may elect to continue coverage through COBRA while off the job.
• Active employees continue to receive the employer-paid portion of benefits.
• Returning strikers will regain employer-paid benefits once they resume work.

"The Garden was hopeful the strike would end before suspending the employer-paid portion of inactive employees' benefits," the statement added.

The healthcare cutoff lands in the second month of a strike that has drawn a daily picket line in front of the garden.

Why are employees striking?

The union says average pay for represented workers stands at $17.52 per hour. MIT's Living Wage Calculator pegs the Richmond-area living wage at $23.36 per hour for a single adult with no children — a $5.84-an-hour gap.

Garden employee Laura Lee Folman described the stakes in a Thursday union release: "Lewis Ginter pays us poverty wages so low we cannot afford basic necessities, and nearly all of us have or currently do face food and housing insecurity."

Folman added: "Responding to Lewis Ginter's highly skilled and committed employees asking that our jobs pay us enough to live on by ripping away our ability to get life-saving prescriptions and daily medications we and our families rely on flies in the face of every value Lewis Ginter and our larger Richmond community stands for."

What is the legal backdrop?

Workers voted to unionize in November 2024. Contract talks since then have not produced an agreement. The garden has asked a court for an injunction prohibiting picketers from engaging in what it called "unlawful conduct." That request remains pending, according to WRIC.

HR leaders will recognize the sequence: union recognition in November 2024, an unresolved first contract more than nine months later, and now an employer applying economic pressure during a work stoppage. Under federal labor law, employers may suspend the employer-paid portion of benefits for employees who do not perform work during a strike; COBRA continuation coverage remains the standard vehicle for affected workers.

What is the dispute costing the nonprofit?

Lewis Ginter CEO Brian Trader told supporters in an August email that the organization had lost "tens of thousands of dollars in revenue" by that point in the strike. The union, citing attendance figures it released Thursday, said the public has "resoundingly sided with strikers" and that garden visitation has dropped sharply since the work stoppage began.

The healthcare cutoff takes effect as both sides weigh whether the strike — now in its second month and visible on the garden's front picket line — will outlast the summer tourism season or push the parties back to the bargaining table.