Trowe visited the recently opened organizing office of Omaha Together One Community (OTOC) and the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) here, which is located a short distance from three major packing plants. The UFCW is organizing workers in the plants to sign union authorization cards at ConAgra, Greater Omaha Packing, and Nebraska Beef, where 2,000 meat packers are employed.

One of the organizers welcomed the support of the Socialist Workers campaign to the union fight and invited Trowe and her campaigners to join a September 26 protest rally against ConAgra at their downtown headquarters. The UFCW recently won a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board against ConAgra for harassing workers involved in the union organizing drive. ConAgra is appealing the ruling.

Next Trowe joined a campaign table at the nearby Nebraska Beef plant. Many of the workers there--the vast majority of whom are originally from Mexico--were already familiar with the socialist campaign because supporters of Trowe and her running mate James Harris have been at this plant gate numerous times over the months.

Many Nebraska Beef workers told Trowe of their conviction that they need a union. Guadalupe, a cut floor worker, explained, "Little by little we are going forward, but there is a lot of turnover--when we win people to the union, some later quit and get another job." Some workers said the main reason workers quit is the speed of the production line and the large amount of overtime. Workers there often put in 10 hour days, six days a week.

A number of workers purchased the Militant and the Spanish-language Perspectiva Mundial.

One of the Nebraska Beef workers who attended a meeting for Trowe at the Omaha public library had met campaign supporters at earlier campaign tables. The worker, a strong union supporter who is Black, explained that it is upsetting for him whenever Mexican-born workers he has come to know on the job later are compelled to leave because of pressure from the immigration police. He also explained to those at the meeting how the Omaha police had just been exonerated for the fatal shooting of a Black man. Thanking Trowe for the exchange of ideas, he said he would try to bring more workers to any future socialist campaign meeting.

The next day Trowe traveled to Marshalltown, Iowa, to meet with workers at the Swift packinghouse. Trowe herself worked on the cut floor at Swift before moving to Austin, Minnesota, last year. A few of her former co-workers hosted a luncheon to welcome her back to Marshalltown.

At the Swift plant gate, where a campaign table was set up, many of Trowe's former co-workers warmly greeted her. Some explained that the line speed is even faster then when she worked on it. Others said that the Swift supervisors have increased their verbal abuse.

They were interested to hear Trowe report on what she had learned around the country about resistance by packinghouse and other workers against similarly brutal conditions.

During her visit Trowe was interviewed by the daily Marshalltown Times-Republican.  
 
 
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