NEWARK, Calif. — Going into their seventh week on strike, 120 Teamsters are maintaining their picket lines at the Cargill sea salt plant here fighting for higher wages and a reduction of the huge sums they pay for health insurance.
“We’re all still out here,” Teamster striker Ramon Gonzalez told the Militant Sept. 22 as the night picket crew gathered outside Cargill’s operations, including salt evaporation ponds, a giant mountain of unrefined salt, the processing plant and rail tracks where it is loaded for delivery.
Gonzalez said he’s worked at Cargill for 30 years and this is the first strike he’s been on. “This used to be a good job, people would encourage their relatives and friends to apply,” he said. “But that’s not as true anymore. That’s why we’re on strike.”
“When contracts come up, they offer a wage raise and tout that,” picket Bob Tatakamotonga said Sept. 17. “But then that gets eaten away when they raise our medical fees. We’re saying no more.”
Cargill is one of the biggest processors of sea salt in North America. Yet, in an ad offering jobs to those willing to scab, it claims it’s a “family company.”
Although the company is attempting to run with management and scabs, the strike is having an impact. Union Pacific train crews refuse to pick up the salt. The company no longer tries to schedule work on the weekends. And workers from Mexico who help during the harvest season have not come this year.
The mood on the picket line is upbeat. “We’re staying together, bonding with each other in a way not possible before,” striker Michael Stevenson said.
They need solidarity. Join the picket outside the Cargill plant at 7220 Central Ave. in Newark.