BY DON MACKLE
MORGANTON, North Carolina -More than 200 striking poultry workers and their supporters rallied here August 17 outside the Case Farms Poultry Processing plant. Demonstrators then marched to the Court House as part of a seven day strike demanding a contract and changes in the working conditions.

"We want a contract," said Carlos Mathau, a 22-year-old Guatemalan born worker staffing the picketline the day before the rally. "The conditions of work are the most important thing for us in this strike. We want respect on the job. Right now we don't have the right to use the bathroom when we need to."

The majority of the 500 workers in the plant are Latinos, primarily from Guatemala.

This was the third strike in just over a year. After organizing a one-day strike in June, workers struck for a week in July 1995 after three workers were fired for protesting poor conditions in the plant. The workers returned to work after the company reinstated the fired workers and dropped charges against them. The ranks then voted to join the Laborers International Union.

"We had a meeting Wednesday night [August 7] and decided not to go back to work Thursday or Friday, and probably for the whole week after that," explained a Black woman who has worked at the plant for eight years. "We are trying to get the company to negotiate with us," she said.

About half the workers in the plant were participating in the strike. They returned to work together August 20.

A delegation of religious leaders visited the plant in April, and documented many of the unsafe conditions workers face. Some of the problems include management's refusal to allow workers to go to the bathroom between breaks, and high line speed resulting in many injuries from carpal tunnel syndrome to knife wounds.

Case Farms deducts payments for all equipment employees use from their paychecks. They charge $.50 for plastic gloves, $13.50 for a safety glove and $12.75 for boots. These deductions take a substantial bite out of the paycheck of workers who receive a top pay of $6.85 an hour.

Case Farms workers Luis Alberto Gonzalez, 27, and Roberto Mendoza, who were in the fifth day of a hunger strike, spoke at the August 17 rally. They spent their days in a tent set up across the street from the plant.

Melissa Wicks, a 16-year-old senior at Eastburke High School, spoke saying she was proud to be counted among those supporting the strike. She has been explaining the facts of the strike to people at her school and local churches. She brought a delegation from her church youth group to the rally.

According to workers on the union organizing committee, 48 workers have been fired for their union activity. At the same time, Case Farms continues its ruthless attack, filing several legal challenges to the year-old union election.

One local church donated its space as a headquarters for the workers, and is soliciting donations of food and money. Striking workers received a boost when the United Mine Workers Union organized one semi-truck load of food. A union official said members returned to work determined to keep fighting and are taking their contract battle back into the plant.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home