“We began the campaign in February,” said Hilda Guillén, 36, a UFCW organizer who has been active in the local organizing drive over the past few years. “We organize house calls, meetings, and regular handbilling. It has been a tough campaign, but a strong committee of workers from several different countries has come together. They know what they want and need, which is a union. I see a lot of support in the plant because the workers see this as their election. We’re there to show them we’re behind them.”

“All workers deserve dignity and respect in the workplace,” said Donna McDonald, president of UFCW Local 271. “UFCW Local 271 is committed to the Casa de Oro workers to make sure they have all of their rights under the law.”

The union effort at Casa de Oro is related to the campaign launched three years ago to organize thousands of food workers in the Omaha area. In May 2002 meat packers at the Swift Foods cattle slaughterhouse voted by a margin of 2-1 for union representation, and in October of the same year they approved their first union contract.

This was the first union victory at one of the cut-and-kill operations in this area since the UFCW and a community group called Omaha Together/One Community (OTOC) launched an organizing drive in June 2000. Since then, workers at a smaller sausage plant voted for the UFCW. The union lost the election at Nebraska Beef, a slaughterhouse with close to 1,000 workers.

Four Swift workers joined Local 271 officials, other supporters, and representatives of OTOC for early-morning handbilling July 29 outside the large tortilla plant. They greeted the morning shift workers with a thumbs-up and neon-color posterboards in English and Spanish, which read “Swift workers, union-experienced, support you! Union yes!”

Workers from Bosnia, Vietnam, Mexico, Sudan, and countries throughout Latin America stopped to take leaflets, with some smiling and others stopping to talk. Some walked or drove by, refusing to take the leaflet.

Casa de Oro is located in an industrial sector of Omaha where the unionized meat-processing plant Omaha Steaks is one of its neighbors. Many workers from these workplaces enter by the road in front of the plant, and several waved and showed their support for the organizing effort.

Benita Espinoza, a Swift kill-floor worker for nearly 10 years and participant in the victorious organizing drive at that plant, explained why she was at the plant gate to show her support.

“I think working in a place with no union is like having a car with no insurance,” she said. “I want the Casa de Oro workers to know that they’re not alone in their fight, and together we can make a difference in the lives of our families and ourselves. Now that the company has begun its campaign against the union, they need our support more than ever.”

Guillén said the union campaign will continue strong through election day. “If Casa de Oro workers win their union, it can inspire other workers to stand up for their rights as well,” she said.

Lisa Rottach is a kill-floor worker at Swift and a member of UFCW Local 271.  
 
 
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