Sugar Workers Bitter Over Lockout
Locked-out sugar beet workers, their families, and supporters turned out in big numbers August 11 to say they want to work—but not on the terms offered by American Crystal Sugar.
ACS locked out more than 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco & Grain Millers August 1, two days after they rejected deep concessions by 97 percent.
Workers rallied at ACS headquarters in Moorhead, Minnesota, and then marched to the bridge leading to Fargo, North Dakota, where they were greeted with honks of support from drivers. The workers are banned from seven facilities in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa.
Crystal Sugar, the largest producer of beet sugar in the U.S., has contracted scabs through a Twin Cities company called Strom Engineering.
“The union had been negotiating since May with fair and modest proposals for the company to consider,” said Mark Froemke, an AFL-CIO staffer coordinating solidarity. He’s a former worker at the East Grands Forks beet plant.
“We kept hearing from management’s spokesperson, ‘either a deal before August 1, or you will be on the outside dealing with this.’” ACS wants to outsource jobs and shift health care costs onto workers.
A worker speaking at the rally said his daughter had a near-fatal accident. Only with help from the community and their current insurance did the family barely make it. With the new insurance proposed by ACS, he said, his daughter would have died. The applause was rousing as she stood from her wheelchair.
Workers have dealt with ACS’s seven-day-a-week, round-the-clock schedule of rotating shifts and tough working conditions in exchange for a decent income and good health care, explains Lisa Christianson, president of a sister BCTGM local.
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“Sugar is at a record price and the company’s profitability is directly related to the skill and hard work of the unionized workforce,” she added. “We sacrifice weekends and holidays and this lockout should be seen as a black eye for all sugar workers in the region.”
UNCOOPERATIVE CO-OP
The sugar processing facilities are owed by a growers’ cooperative and managed by ACS. Tony St. Michael, a bargaining committee member, said the union was reaching out to farmers in the co-op to put pressure on management.
The locked-out employees are receiving unemployment benefits but resoundingly want to work. St. Michael noted that CEO Dave Berg’s salary has doubled to $2 million since 2008.
“Their cuts to 1,300 workers and families equal this one guy’s pay,” he said. “This is not right and we are going to keep on fighting until they step away.”
At the rally, a Steelworkers local in North Dakota presented a check for $5,000. Shar Knutson, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, asked supporters to call Berg at ACS headquarters (218-236-4400).
Eliot Seide, director of AFSCME Council 5, said, “We will be here with you until the greedy bastards give you the contract you deserve,” bringing the crowd to its feet.
Harvest time is just around the corner in September. Worker resolve is strong, and talk of sticking to it for the long haul echoed through the park.