GREELEY, Colo. — A team of members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist League in Canada went to plant gates and workers’ doorsteps in northeast Colorado Oct. 31 to Nov. 4, looking to meet with the more than 40 subscribers to the Militant newspaper won during the JBS meatpackers strike by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 here and by members of Teamsters Local 455 who were locked out at the Cargill plant in Fort Morgan. Those fights involved thousands of workers who hailed from dozens of countries throughout the world. Team members also visited workers in Denver.
Jacob Perasso, SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in Washington state, spoke to workers at a shift change at the Fort Morgan plant Nov. 2. Many explained that conditions remain very difficult in the plant.
One worker originally from Africa signed up for a Militant subscription. “Cuba supports liberation struggles in Africa and around the world, unlike Washington, which goes to war in the Middle East and the Caribbean for plunder,” Perasso said, showing him Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Cuban combatant Víctor Dreke. “Nelson Mandela was a real hero,” the new subscriber said when he saw the picture of Mandela with Fidel Castro.
Deborah Liatos, SWP member from Los Angeles, and Joe Young, a Communist League member from Montreal, had wide-ranging discussions at the home of two former Militant subscribers, a couple who worked in Greeley. They discussed the recent meatpackers’ battle, and the importance of demanding amnesty for all immigrant workers in the U.S. to unite the working class. They renewed their Militant subscription and bought Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Jean Luc Duval from Detroit and Mary Martin from Minneapolis visited a number of JBS workers they had met on the strike picket lines. The workers said some gains had been registered, but the struggle over line speed and workplace injuries continues.
Judy Burgess, a restaurant worker and Militant subscriber, greeted team members with a question, “What was the outcome of the Teamsters lockout in Fort Morgan?”
Martin and Duval explained how some workers at the Cargill plant gate told them that their vocal and visible picket lines during the company lockout strengthened their union, but fights on wages and working conditions continue now that they’re back on the factory floor.
“That’s the way it is for working people. It seems it just keeps getting worse,” Burgess said.
“And that’s why we have to keep fighting the bosses,” Duval said, “and why you need to read the Militant to know about where workers are fighting back and where they make gains.” Burgess renewed her subscription.
At the JBS plant gate in Greeley Nov. 2, team members spoke with workers getting off work. Some were buoyed by the improvements won through their strike, but said the line speed is still too fast. One worker signed up for a Militant subscription.
“Several workers told me the workers made a few gains, including a small raise and the company now has to pay for safety equipment, but most importantly workers there are more united, in a better position to continue the fight,” Duval said.