Vol. 78/No. 8 March 3, 2014
Teamsters in Illinois strike Bay Valley Foods plant
DIXON, Ill. — Nine degree below zero temperatures did not stop 112 workers at Bay Valley Foods here from walking out Feb. 6 against company demands for cuts in pensions and health care. Members of Teamsters Local 722 say the biggest issue in this strike is the company’s proposal to stop accepting doctors’ notes to excuse absences.“They say eight absences and you’re fired,” Bob Crowe, a wraparound operator with 15 years in the Dixon plant, told the Militant. “The investors who own the company just keep getting richer and they treat the employees like garbage.”
The Teamsters contract ran out Dec. 28. The company has kept the plant open, using nonunion workers and management personnel from other Bay Valley Foods plants to keep it running. Workers are picketing 24 hours a day.
“This is mainly about respect,” Joe Baxter, a logistics worker at Bay Valley for 12 years, said. “It’s the same story all over the world and it’s about time people started standing up. This has been going on too long, these companies just want to take and take.”
“The whole community is supporting us,” said Gayle Dietmeier, a cleaner in the plant. “We’ve had teachers, AFSCME workers, and others join our picket line. All kinds of people stop by with tacos, pizzas, food and hot coffee. One person brought $50 to the gas station on the corner to run a tab for picketers who came in for food and coffee.”
One hundred fifty strikers and supporters held a solidarity rally at the Teamsters union hall Feb. 14. Many joined the pickets after the rally, swelling the line to close to 50.
— Betsy Farley
Quebec hotel workers maintain picket line
SAINT-HYACINTHE, Quebec — Some 180 hotel workers have been on strike since Oct. 28, 2012, at the Hotel des Seigneurs hotel and convention center here. Last Dec. 22 SilverBirch Hotels and Resorts, which owns the Saint-Hyacinthe complex, decided to close it down.The workers, members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), continue to picket daily in front of the now-shuttered complex. They are fighting to defend their union jobs and contract if the owner sells the facilities.
By a 90 percent margin, workers voted Dec. 19 to reject the company`s final offer.
“I’ve been here six years but I think of those who have been here 20 years,” chambermaid Mirta Barboza told the Militant Feb. 1 outside the picket trailer. “They deserve their pension and a good retirement.”
Mayor Claude Corbeil announced Jan. 21 that the complex was up for sale. While the future is unclear, the workers continue to fight.
In addition to walking the picket line, the hotel workers are engaged in solidarity activities with other workers on strike or locked out. On Jan. 30, 53 strikers took buses to Abitibi, Quebec, to join with supermarket workers fighting for new contracts at Maxi, Provigo and Loblaws stores in the region.
— John Steele