CROCKETT, Calif. — Ninety-one warehouse workers, members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6, went on strike June 15 at C&H Sugar here. They voted unanimously to turn down the bosses’ insulting takeback contract and to authorize a strike. The factory refines over 750,000 tons of cane sugar yearly — 10% of U.S. production.
C&H Sugar is part of the American Sugar Refining Group, which says it’s the largest sugar refiner in the world.
“I think this contract was a deliberate provocation,” shop steward Otis Brown told the Militant.
“We are all united in turning down this contract,” Asser Garcia, an autonomous forklift coordinator and union foreman, said. “They want to take away seniority in scheduling and job bidding. They want to take away our rest day and keep the plant running continually without paying overtime.”
Because the bosses successfully maneuvered to have the Local 6 warehouse workers’ contract end at a different time than the plant’s production workers — who are members of Sugar Workers Union Local 1 — they are still on the job. “I know it kills them to keep working,” Brown said.
A year ago the company pressed Local 1 until the unionists ratified a similar takeback contract. But it was never signed and the bosses change the rules every day, one Local 1 worker said. The company has threatened to fire them for “job abandonment” if they honor the warehouse workers’ picket line.
The bosses are busing in scabs to work in the warehouse.
“I can’t blame the Sugar Workers,” Brian Dennison, a specialty forklift operator, said. “It’s the company.”
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