The marchers staged a mock funeral procession to protest the refusal of Rosen's Diversified, Inc., Dakota Premium's parent corporation, to negotiate a contract with the meat packers. Workers wearing pro-union T-shirts with the slogan Sí se puede! ("Yes we can" in Spanish) carried a black casket followed by marchers carrying crosses and chanting picket slogans in English and Spanish.

They walked from the Dakota Premium plant gate to the offices of UFCW Local 789 a half mile away.

Shortly after the beginning of the march, a group of workers from Dakota rushed to the front of the march chanting in Spanish and English, "We want a contract and we want it now." The unionists set the pace of the march.

The event also included the participation of staff and rank-and-file members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 17, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, United Transportation Union, United Auto Workers, Union of Needle-trades, Industrial and Textile Employees, and members of Local 789 at two other workplaces--Rainbow Foods and a St. Paul nursing home.

Workers at Dakota, in their majority workers born in Mexico and Central America, shut down production on June 1, 2000, for seven-and-a-half hours to protest working conditions and the production line speed in particular The sit-down strike initiated an organizing drive that culminated in a union victory seven weeks later when the meat packers voted 112 to 71 to join the UFCW.

The company appealed the election to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which upheld the union election last November. The Dakota bosses appealed once more to the NLRB; no ruling has been made by the government agency in the past six months.

After the march, a rally took place at the Local 789 union hall, where refreshments and snacks were served. William Pearson, UFCW local president, and a number of workers from Dakota Premium addressed the crowd.

"There are those who think we have accomplished nothing in this year of struggle, but I believe the opposite," said one of the speakers, Miguel Olvera, a worker at the plant and member of the local's Communications Committee.

Over the past year, Olvera said in Spanish in an interview with the Militant, "we have pushed the company to treat people who get injured in a different way [from how they have treated them before]. Despite the problems, we have now forced them to provide some treatment. We received a 50-cent raise in our wages for the first time in many years, and although we do not have the line speed we want, we got them to lower it, and they don't run it at the speed they would like to run it."

"We are fighting the line speed. The line speed is no joke. You feel it in your body," said Bobbi Negrón, another worker at Dakota. "Our main problem is the speed of the line is really fast," remarked Reynaldo Montoya, another Dakota worker who participated in the action.

"Looking back at this past year we have to ask ourselves can it be done? Can we get union recognition and get a contract?" Olvera said. Paraphrasing the old farm worker slogan Sí se puede, he replied, "I have to say 'yes, it can be done.'"
 
 
Related article:
Meat packers at Nebraska plant set for union vote  
 
 
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