AP/The Hutchinson News/Lindsey Bauman

Three thousand rallied April 10 for immigrant rights in Garden City, Kansas, a farming town of 30,000. Two weeks earlier, 14 meat packers from the nearby Tyson plant spoke out at a city commission hearing against verbal abuse and unsafe conditions in the plant. The workers are seeking union representation with the United Steelworkers. Tyson shut the plant down April 10 because many of its 3,100 workers skipped work for the rally.

As demonstrators took to the streets, “employers across the country got their first taste of worker absenteeism,” the Wall Street Journal reported April 11. “Meatpacking plants in the Midwest and hotels and other businesses in the South were crippled by absenteeism among Hispanic workers.”

Packinghouse workers turned out in force throughout the Midwest, including at rallies of 6,000 people in Omaha, Nebraska, and 12,000 in Sioux City and 5,000 in Des Moines, Iowa.

A contingent from United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 222 led the march from South Sioux City, Nebraska, across the bridge to Sioux City, Iowa.

Because of the demonstrations, several packing plants in the region had to shut down for the day. In the Omaha area these included the Swift plant, organized by UFCW Local 271, and the nonunion Nebraska Beef facility. Four packinghouses shut down near Sioux City, including Tyson’s beef plant in Dakota City, Nebraska, whose 4,000 employees are organized by UFCW Local 222. Tyson also had to close its plants in Denison, Iowa, and Madison, Nebraska.

Nationwide, Tyson closed 10 of its 100 plants on April 10, company officials told the press.

At the Tyson plant in Holcomb, Nebraska, workers are fighting to organize into the United Steelworkers. When 14 workers, mostly from the plant’s kill floor, spoke out at a March 28 City Commission meeting in nearby Garden City to protest verbal abuse, lack of bathroom breaks, and dangerous job conditions, the bosses brushed off the charges, claiming the pro-union workers were an isolated minority. On April 10, however, so many of the 3,100 workers at the plant joined the immigrant rights rally in Garden City that Tyson had to shut it down.

Some 3,000 people protested in Garden City, a town of 30,000, including hundreds of high school students. At the local school, one-third of the 2,000 students skipped class, the principal complained to the Garden City Telegram.

In Arkansas City, Kansas, the owners of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef shut down their plant as workers joined a rally in a town of 12,000 inhabitants. Excel Corp., the nation’s second-largest beef processor, reported slowed production at its plants in Dodge City and Schuyler, Nebraska.

In Boston, unionists at the Kayem meat-processing plant told the Militant the second shift was canceled that day as employees joined a march of 8,000. Buses full of meat packers and other working people from Austin, Worthington, Owatonna, and other towns in Minnesota converged on St. Paul for a march of 30,000 on April 9.

“North Carolina, home to an emerging Latino community, was hard hit,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “A call by local immigrant groups for a retail boycott also prompted many Hispanics to stay away from work altogether.” At the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlotte, a housekeeping supervisor told the Journal that “more than 90 percent of my workers are Latinas… They didn’t show up.”

In Siler City, a town of 6,000 in North Carolina, many of whom work in poultry and textile plants, some 3,000 people from the area rallied against criminalizing the undocumented. And in Claremont, a village of 1,000 in eastern North Carolina, Progressive Furniture Manufacturing had to close for the day because “of the company’s 600-person workforce, 161 did not come to work,” a company official told the press.

In Florida the largest of several demonstrations was in Ft. Myers, where 75,000 marched on the National Day of Action. In Plant City, 200 high school students ignored school officials’ pleas and walked out of class to attend a rally at city hall. They were joined by workers from Del Monte Fresh Produce. Forklift operator Carlos Palacios told the St. Petersburg Times that 90 of 100 workers there walked off the job at 6:00 a.m. When the general manager offered them double-time if they stayed, the workers refused. “It’s about principle,” said Palacios.

In Homestead, Florida, more than 3,000 farm workers and others rallied with chants of “No, no, we won’t go!” Many signed up to take part in a nationwide May 1 work stoppage promoted by rally organizers. A statewide demonstration calling for legalization of undocumented workers will take place May 1 in Orlando.

Meanwhile, 15 meat packers are fighting to win back their jobs after the bosses at the Wolverine Packing Co. fired them for attending a March 27 immigrant rights action in Detroit. The fired meat cutters, all Mexican-born women, are members of the UFCW. Twenty union representatives went to meet with company officials April 10 to demand they be reinstated.

Frank Forrestal, Edwin Fruit, and Joe Swanson in Des Moines, Iowa; Laura Garza in Boston; Nelson González in St. Paul, Minnesota; and Deborah Liatos in Miami contributed to this article. Fruit is a member of UFCW Local 1149 and works at the Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa.
 
 
Related articles:
Half million in D.C.
125,000 in New York
A blow for all working people
April 9-10 Actions for Immigrant Rights by State and City  
 
 
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