"People are more united and more awake," said Ricardo Rodríguez, a fabrication (cut-floor) worker. "It's not going to be the same as it was before."

The fight against the company was precipitated by a six-year contract proposed by Excel and the union negotiating committee of Teamsters Local 961. The previous contract, a three-year accord covering 1,650 union members at the plant, expired February 25.

Adán Morales, a fabrication worker with nearly seven years in the plant, explained that the contract offer included a wage increase of $2.00 over six years, a doubling of the yearly family insurance deductible to $600, no overtime pay for holidays unless 40 hours are worked in the plant, and three weeks of vacation after eight years of service. Workers rejected the proposal in a 917-59 vote on February 25.

"After the vote, everyone was saying 'No work! If we're united, we'll win something,'" Morales said.

"We asked the union president to call the company president to come and negotiate or we'd go on strike," said Enrique Soto, a fabrication worker at the plant since 1992. A hand vote was quickly taken, and the majority decided to carry out a strike, despite opposition voiced by Local 961 president Douglas Whetstine, Soto reported.

Workers said the job action actually started the day before, when second-shift fabrication and kill-floor workers did not report to work on Saturday, February 24. They were angry about the six-year contract offer and sure that the company was not going to pay Saturday overtime, because the bosses had sent workers home earlier in the week after an hours-long blackout. The company had pulled the same trick of not paying Saturday overtime previously, workers reported.  
 
Workers arrested
After the union meeting where workers decided to strike, sheriff's deputies arrested Morales and Soto at their homes without warrants, holding them overnight until noon the next day, Morales said. He added that Soto was not even read his rights, and neither worker was allowed to make a phone call. According to Morales, Morgan County sheriff Jim Crone told the two that Whetstine had brought charges against them of misdemeanor harassment and incitement to riot.

"They thought they would scare people and they wouldn't strike, but it was the opposite," Soto said. "People were furious, because Adán and I weren't guilty of anything, we were just workers defending our rights."

Added Morales, "They said I was inciting, but I was just a spokesperson, repeating what people were saying."

At 4:00 a.m. the next morning, about 600 workers gathered in the freezing cold in front of the plant entrance, chanting, "Three years only!" and carrying signs in English and Spanish that said, "No more injustice in the plant" and "Out with Abel Carrerra and Billy Martinez!"--two hated managers at the plant. Within a half hour, $2,000 was donated by the strikers to pay bail for Morales and Soto.

Both shifts, totaling more than 1,200 production workers plus maintenance workers, stayed out for two days, with a total of about 400 crossing the line, workers reported. They said the plant was so empty that the bosses went to get their relatives' and friends' cars to make the parking lot look full.

Workers got calls at home from the company telling them they would be fired if they didn't come to work, and received letters February 27 that threatened to cut off wages and insurance benefits, saying "The current situation is an illegal wildcat strike." The Spanish translation of the letter said the strike was "una huelga salvaje ilegal," which literally means an illegal, savage strike.

"We heard through different sources that the company lost $3 million the first day alone," said Enrique Chávez, a fabrication worker. "We heard the supervisors were going to lose their production bonuses, which go up to $10,000."

Teamsters Local 961 officials refused to support the strike, with Whetstine telling the Fort Morgan Times, "This strike is illegal. It is not endorsed by Local 961 and the workers were told that yesterday."

By Monday afternoon, the company asked workers to negotiate.

On the picket line, workers elected a committee of eight, including Morales and Soto, that represented all departments and both shifts. Pickets drew up a list of 14 demands to present to the company. Among these were a three-year contract with a better raise, no mandatory overtime, basing the line speed on the number of workers on the line on a given day, a guarantee of two shop stewards on the production floor at all times, a maximum family insurance deductible of $200 a year, and no more abusive behavior toward workers.

When union officials agreed February 27 to include three of the elected representatives on the union negotiating committee to meet with the company, workers decided to go back to work. Morales said Whetstine apologized to him and Soto that night and said he would drop the charges against them.  
 
Contract approved
In negotiations that included a federal mediator, the company presented as its final offer--a five-year contract that was almost identical to the one workers had rejected February 25, Morales said. The company threatened to close down the plant if the union didn't accept its ultimatum, he added."They ignored our demands," Morales said.

"The biggest mistake we made was going back to work," Soto remarked. "We trusted them when they said they wanted to negotiate. Why the hell did we go back?"

While the company took no action against workers who had participated in the strike, supervisors throughout the week tried to intimidate workers to vote for the company's new offer, workers reported.

The company plastered posters around the plant with the union local's logo on it saying, "Vote Yes!" and supervisors went around telling workers that if they approved the contract, they would have a 60-cent raise immediately.The vote on the company's latest offer was held March 10. The contract was approved 300-216.

"Everyone at the meeting was saying, 'if the contract doesn't pass, then what?'" Morales reported. "Everyone was saying, 'let's strike,' but the union president said that even if we carried out a legal strike, we couldn't prevent the company from using replacement workers."

"A lot of people got up and said, 'I've been on strike in California, and when the people are united in a legal strike, no one can cross,'" Morales said. Despite that, a lot of people felt they had no choice, and that's why the contract was approved, he said. "People feel like the contract was imposed on them--no one likes it," Soto said.

Workers noted that the company had canceled the Friday kill-floor shifts before the vote, and the Monday fabrication shifts. Many workers said they thought the company did that so they wouldn't have cows to process in the event that workers decided to strike again.

While no worker had been fired or suspended for participating in the strike, workers were expecting reprisals from the company.

"They took no action because they were waiting for the contract to pass," Soto said. "If they try to fire one of us, we'll all go," he added. "The company learned that before it does us injustice, they'll think twice. The people might get together again."  
 
Unbearable conditions
Workers described unbearable conditions at the plant, where 2,300 cows a shift are killed and processed. The line speed is one of the main problems, having risen from 250 cows an hour a year ago to 310 an hour. Workers are expected to do the same amount of work whether or not all positions are filled on a particular day.

"They do the same amount of work with three workers as with seven," said Chávez. "If you complain, they say, there's the door."

Workers described company discrimination, with bosses giving U.S.-born whites preferential treatment, although the majority of supervisors are Latino.

Many workers are forced to work injured. If they get put on "light duty", the company "makes life impossible" for them, shorting them on hours and sending them hustling around the plant to do dirty and heavy jobs that they shouldn't be doing, said Orlin Acosta, 24, a fabrication worker for six years. Acosta had three operations on his left wrist after a cow leg fell on it, with the company refusing to send him to a doctor for two weeks. Morales has had two operations on his wrists, and has lost movement in his hands.

Soto, Morales, and others said they had no previous strike or union experience. However, workers at the plant had staged a work stoppage over two days in May 1998 to protest the company's refusal to pay for time lost during an ammonia leak at the plant that hospitalized dozens of workers.

On that occasion, after taking hours to finally evacuate people, the company had kept first-shift workers around for hours while the employers dealt with the ammonia leak, and failed to advise second-shift workers that production was halted. Many workers travel up to an hour from the nearby towns of Greeley and Sterling to come to work.

When second-shift workers received their checks the following week and saw that the company was not paying them for the hours lost, they sat down in the cafeteria and refused to work until they received their pay. After an hour, the company told the workers they were illegally trespassing and called in police, who brought dogs and even pepper-sprayed some workers. Workers occupied the cafeteria until the end of the shift.

The next day, day-shift workers occupied the cafeteria at lunchtime and refused to return to work because the company had not passed out checks on time. The manager told workers they were all fired, and made a show of removing workers' files from the personnel office, but no one budged.

Finally, the company agreed to negotiate with four representatives elected by the workers and ended up paying both shifts the four hours' time lost for the ammonia leak. The company refused to pay the hospital bills of workers who were injured during the leak, however, including a woman who had a miscarriage.

Workers also described an immigration raid two years earlier, where the company inserted notes into about 50 workers' paychecks, asking them to attend a meeting for an unspecified reason.

When the workers were in the room, the door was locked behind them and immigration cops identified themselves, and deported the workers.

Rose Ana Berbeo is a meat packer in St. Paul Minnesota.  
 
 
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