The Long Prairie plant is one of three cut-and-kill operations owned by Rosen’s Diversified Inc., the seventh-largest beef packer in the country. The workers belong to Local 789 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW).

Local 789 also organizes workers at Dakota Premium Foods, a plant located in South St. Paul and owned by Rosen’s Diversified. Workers there won a union election in July of 2000 following a June 1 sit-down strike. Despite that victory, the union has not yet been recognized officially there. The National Labor Relations Board has still not issued an answer to an appeal of the elections that the company filed last November.

"We were working on bull carcasses, which are normally run at a slower speed, but that morning they were running the line at 136 carcasses per hour," Rodolfo, a shank boner at Long Prairie who took part in the May 8 job action, said in an interview.

"Not only did they run the line faster, but they were demanding quality as well, demanding that the bones be completely clean," he said about the bosses. "Pretty soon, pieces began to pile up at the work stations in several operations, so we began to discuss the need to do something during our first break."

"By the second break," said Eusebio Fronteras, another boning department worker, "we were determined to do something, and word spread in the lunchroom. The chuck boners went upstairs to the main office to complain about the line speed because the bosses had taken two people off their operation--on top of the faster speed. The end of the break came and went, and very few workers, mainly from packaging, went back to work. It was all the white workers, the shop stewards, and a few others who went back."  
 
Workers stay in lunchroom
"Brian Khulman, the department supervisor, came and then other supervisors showed up demanding that we go back to work," said Saturnino Morelos, another participant in the job action. "We said we wanted a discussion with the main bosses about the line speed. The main supervisor told us to get back to work and that we could discuss the problem after work with whoever we wanted to. We said we wanted to talk to Patrick [Collings, head of Human Resources] and we did not move," Morelos said.

The unionists reported that a discussion broke out among workers about the action and how to resolve it. One worker who was arguing for going back to work told those who supported the action, "Are you going to pay my rent if we get fired?" Another worker replied, "If we stick together and defend each other, they won’t be able to fire anyone."

Workers remained in the lunchroom until the Human Resources director showed up. Collings told workers the problem would be reviewed but that they had to get back to work.

"At that point a number of people went back to the line," said Morelos, "but about 40 of us stayed because we have heard those words come out of his mouth before and everything would remain the same. A while later he came back to the lunchroom and told us that if we did not want to work, that we should leave. ‘Go home! he said. So we did.

"We went downstairs, washed our equipment and stuff, and went for the door. ‘We don’t want you,’ said Brian Khulman, the boning department head. A couple of workers who had gone back to work joined us on our way out. But then, all of a sudden, the plant manager, Cecil Foote, came in a hurry. He said he had not been around when the discussion had taken place, that no one should leave, and that the line speed would be adjusted. Some workers had left already, but they came back the next day," said Morelos.

Fronteras added, "They brought the line speed way down at first, and then brought it back up, but not up to point where it was. Now they are not running it at the speed it should be, but it is not as fast as they wanted to run it."

He reported that "now they have been carrying out an ‘investigation.’ One by one, they have been taking us upstairs to the office, trying to get us to give names of people who supposedly organized the stoppage. But nobody has given them any names and no one has gotten fired."

Barbara Morisch, a shop steward and kill floor production worker who has been in the plant for about two years, described the conditions that workers face. "It doesn’t matter how much you cry and plead to the company that the line speed is just too fast and working conditions are becoming increasingly more dangerous--they just force more and more on us.

"Workers are tired, got fed up, and said they couldn’t take it anymore," Morisch reported. "So after lunch break, these workers who were all from boning, led by Mexicans and other Latinos, refused to go back to work until management met with them and assured them that the line speed would be turned down immediately."  
 
‘Great to see workers standing together’
"After the time allotted for the boning workers’ lunch was over," she continued. "I went up to the lunchroom for a few minutes to show my support, and most of the workers were there sticking together as one. It was so, so, great to see all those workers together making a stand against the company for the conditions they force on us."

"We [kill floor workers] are facing the same conditions as the workers in boning, which is the ever-increasing line speed," Morisch said. "Co-workers are coming up to me and asking, ‘When are we going to do this [a work stoppage]? I try to explain about that clause in the contract that says we cannot strike, but that we need to discuss what we can do.

"We are putting out as many cattle in eight hours now--which is about 870 per day--as we did a year ago working more than 10 hours a day. The company has made it known they are trying to achieve 1,000 head of cattle a day in eight hours. I’m telling co-workers why it is so important to strengthen our union now! If we allow the way they are treating us to continue, things will get worse."

Barbara Schneider, a worker on the boning floor, told the Militant, "I thought it was so great that all those workers refused to go back to work. It just made me feel so good to see everyone standing together in the plant.

"Management never listens to us. We have told management the line speed is going too fast, and all they do is just turn it up higher," said Jerry Ludwig, chuck boner and chief shop steward on the boning floor.

He added, "This action really took management by surprise. They didn’t think workers were capable of doing anything like that. The company just pushes and pushes, thinking we will just take it. But they were wrong."  
 
 
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