When the owner didn’t show at the beginning of the shift, workers organized a work stoppage that lasted six hours. The workers returned to the job only after the owner met with them and agreed to their central demands. These included creating a classification of the different knife jobs workers do, a pay scale for each classification, and paying each worker the hourly rate for the classification they are in.

Minnesota Beef workers, many of whom live here in the town of Hector near Buffalo Lake, won a union representation election over a year ago that brought in United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 789. Since then they have been fighting to win a contract in face of stalling tactics by the company and intimidation that has included the firing of some workers.

Miguel Olvera, a UFCW steward at Dakota Premium in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a leader of a sit-down strike a few years ago that brought Local 789 into that plant and won a contract there, has been fighting his termination by Dakota on trumped-up charges. He and a few other Dakota Premium workers came to Hector to meet Minnesota Beef workers and learn about their fight. “I heard about the stoppage and I wanted to know how you organized it and what you’ve been able to win from the company,” Olvera told meat packers here. “This could help us back in our plant.”

Jesus Riza, a union steward in the kill floor and a leader of the work stoppage at Minnesota Beef, said workers were fed up with the company’s stalling tactics.

“We had had enough,” Riza said. “We have people who have been working three to four years making between $8.75 and $9.75 an hour and no increase, doing knife jobs that should be paid at a higher rate.”

After an August 12 meeting when management refused to make an offer, the workers demanded the meeting with the owner.

“We told the company what we were planning to do,” Riza said. “On Tuesday, when the owner didn’t show we organized a soccer game outside the plant until he showed up.”

Twenty out of the 30 workers on the kill floor participated in the stoppage. “A weakness was that none of the workers in the boning department joined us,” Riza added. “But many of them, after seeing what we accomplished, told me they were ashamed at not joining us because it was for their benefit too. Many of them told me they would join us next time if we have to do this again.”

In the contract talks under way workers have won promises from the company for increased vacation time, paid safety gloves, and holiday and funeral pay, Riza said. He added, however, that “we need an agreement that includes a raise in our hourly rate right now and a provision that after a qualifying period workers will get paid the top pay for the classification they are in.”

“If they try to stall us again we’ll go out, we are not afraid,” Riza said. He also invited Dakota Premium workers to support whatever action meat packers here may have to take.  
 
 
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