Vol. 76/No. 16      April 23, 2012

Some 1,300 workers were locked out Aug. 1 after voting down a concession contract.

Some 30 of these workers rallied April 4 outside a Fargo, N.D., customer meeting for CoBank, which provides more than $370 million in credit lines to American Crystal.

“CoBank, by investing in Crystal Sugar, is supporting this lockout and the devastation it’s causing in our communities up and down the Valley,” Nathan Rahm, a locked-out worker from Hillsboro, N.D., told Workday Minnesota.

Locked-out workers continue to hold weekly “scab change” rallies to protest American Crystal’s hiring of scabs from Strom Engineering, a notorious anti-labor employment agency.

At the “scab change” rally April 5 at the Drayton, N.D., plant, at least four locked-out workers were ticketed by the Pembina police for not parking behind a line, lacking a date sticker on a license plate and driving with a cracked taillight. “This was a clear case of intimidation and harassment by the police,” Paul Dahlman, a locked-out worker, told the Militant by phone.

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union members spoke at a tristate meeting of the Communications Workers union in Grand Forks, N.D., in late March. Mike Nygard, president of CWA Local 7303, said in a phone interview that it “was a real good turnout” when those at the meeting joined sugar workers picketing at the nearby East Grand Forks plant.

Several locked-out workers attended a March 22 meeting on the annual U.S. farm bill sponsored by Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar. An American Crystal Sugar executive was also there. Ken Pazdernik, a regional staffer for the Minnesota Farmers Union, was reported in Agweek as saying his organization works for the farmer and “also with labor” and urged the resumption of negotiations, noting that “the people who are being hurt and also the management are here.”

—Tony Lane and Frank Forrestal

SF hospital engineers
strike for equal pay
SAN FRANCISCO—Equal pay for equal work. That’s what stationary engineers on strike at four California Pacific Medical Center hospitals here say their fight is about.

The workers, members of Stationary Engineers Local 39, want parity with stationary engineers at other hospitals in the Bay Area. This includes those, like California Pacific, that are affiliated with Sutter Health. The strikers also want to put a stop to the contracting out of work traditionally performed by members of Local 39.

“We’ve been without a contract since October 2010,” Lenard Quock, one of the workers picketing at the California campus, told the Militant. “They are trying to break the union. We had to fight.”

“We’ve offered a guaranteed wage increase over three years, which I think in this economy is more than reasonable,” said Kathie Graham, communications director for Sutter Health, in a phone interview. “I can’t speak about the other hospitals.”

Graham said it would not be “fair and reasonable” to give the engineers a higher wage increase than other California Pacific workers are receiving.

Since walking out March 26, the 72 strikers have maintained pickets around the clock at all four campuses. California Pacific has brought in scabs through Strom Engineering, a firm that specializes in strikebreaking, to operate medical equipment as well as heating and air conditioning units.

—Betsey Stone

200 rally to back GE workers’
battle for union recognition
BURLINGTON, Iowa–Some 200 workers from 15 unions rallied in Crapo Park here March 31 to support a “yes” vote in the upcoming union representation election April 11, when 170 General Electric workers will decide whether the Communications Workers of America should represent them.

One GE worker named a few unions present and then asked if there were others in attendance. People in the crowd shouted out the unions they represented: Machinists, Steelworkers, AFSCME, BCTGM, and others. Ruben Martinez, a union member from a GE plant in Texas, was there in solidarity.

On March 12 the National Labor Relations Board ruled that 170 workers at the GE plant constituted the voting unit. The bosses appealed the decision, wanting to add 27 company personnel to the voting pool. If the appeal is not heard and acted on by April 11, the election will take place, but the votes will be impounded for a later count.

In 2010, GE bosses demanded cost-saving measures in return for keeping the plant open. Production and maintenance workers took pay cuts of 30 to 50 percent.

GE management has been telling workers that voting in the union will take away the “one-to-one” relationship each employee has with the company, Genia Wyatt told the Burlington Hawk Eye. “When it comes down to it, it’s more likely to be four to one, and let me tell you, standing alone against those odds can be tough.” Of course, with a union they will be freed from a so-called one-to-one relationship precisely because they will no longer be standing alone.

—Buddy Howard and Maggie Trowe

Workers in UK demand severance
after bosses close plant
LIVERPOOL, England—Six weeks after locking out 149 workers Mayr-Melnhof Packaging announced it was permanently closing its plant here. In a statement the company blamed “a continuing decline in the plant’s international competitiveness.”

Workers, organized by the Unite union, are demanding larger redundancy (severance) payments than the company has offered, and that all workers, including four fired during the lockout, receive the payments. Mayr-Melnhof calls itself the “leading folding carton” company in Europe.

Prior to the Feb. 18 lockout, the workers held a series of one-day strikes protesting the way the company planned to lay off a smaller number of workers without union input.

“They never managed to divide us. We are fighting now to get a decent redundancy,” Allan Clements told the Militant at the picket line. Workers are keep the lines up around the clock.

Other unions, local workers and football (soccer) fans are among those who have stopped by the picket line to offer support. “Yesterday, on April 5, we got £7,000 [$11,100], all in just one day,” said local union treasurer Peter Brown, showing the notebook where all contributions were recorded.

Mayr-Melnhof did not respond to interview requests.

—Catharina Tirsén