There are a lot of misconceptions about unions. So first off i will say, yes I am a union member, so flame away if you must. Labor unions brought you the labor laws that protect you and I today. They also brought you a standard 40 hour work week and overtime pay. Oh and a holiday too, that I don't get paid for. Are unions needed today? Yes and No. Like I said I am a member, but I see where the unions have hurt themselves. The fact is that even non union plants pay decent wages, but some only do because of the very threat of a union. And just so we get this straight, I am a union drywall finisher. I have worked both sides of the fence. I will take the union any day. However I don't think teachers, sports players, or any government employee for that matter needs a union. Let me give you a few facts about my union. First off, we get NO paid holidays. This is the first year in 5 years that i have seen a raise on my check. Yes we did get raises, but they had to be allocated to cover the ever rising cost of health insurance and retirement. Oh and our insurance, its a joke. We also don't get paid vacations. And my local union, is the second lowest paid union in the state of Missouri. And this B.S. about getting raises for nothing, sorry we don't do that either. You have to go to school. You have to do your homework. Only your first raise is guaranteed, after that it's up to you, and the journeyman that evaluates you. Yes once you graduate the apprenticeship program, you make the same as everyone else. But here's the catch, if you don't work and produce you go home. You don't stand around. I am a foreman for the company that I work for. We don't put up with slackers at all. You don't work, you won't work. period. I must say this, if you are in the construction industry, yes unions are needed. Not only do the unions keep wages up for us, but for nonunion guys as well. I'm sorry but I'm not going to finish drywall for $10 an hour or less. I can work at Walmart and make that and not have to deal with the health hazards that I deal with on a daily basis. So flame away if you must. But really only 18% of the work force is union, does it really piss the other 82% off that much that we can't have our unions? And why can't we work under a collective bargaining agreement? Would you just rather work for something you are promised that can be taken away at anytime, or would you rather work for something that is guranteed in writing for a set period of time?
Workers fight lockout
imposed by American Crystal Sugar
There was nothing good in this contract. That is why it was rejected and is being picketed in front of the American Crystal Sugar factories.
1,300 sugar union workers have been locked out since August 1 at five sugar plants in the Red River Valley region of Minnesota (Crookston, Moorhead, East Grand Forks) and North Dakota (Hillsboro, Drayton). Workers are also locked out at two smaller processing plants in Chaska, a suburb of Minneapolis, and in Mason City, Iowa. American Crystal is the largest beet-sugar producer in the United States, for those of you who don't know.
By a margin of 96 percent, more than 1,200 workers voted July 30 to reject the company’s “final” contract offer. The workers are members of five locals of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM).
All these sugar workers voted no, becaise the whole package was rotten. It was 40-plus pages of takeaways. The company brought up wages at the end of negotiations and then tried to bribe us with a $2,000 signing bonus.
That was aimed at the public, to make it look like a good offer. What we gain in wages—4 percent the first year, 3 percent the second, and 2 percent each following year—would be taken away by increases in the company’s proposed health-care plan.”
The union reports that higher premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, and larger deductibles would double health-care costs for members.
If that weren’t enough, the company has cut off medical coverage for locked-out workers. One sugar worker said that when she went to fill a prescription for heart medicine for her husband the evening of the contract vote, she was told the next 90-day supply will cost more than $500.
“We offered what we thought was a terrific contract,” Brian Ingulsrud, vice-president of American Crystal Sugar, told Associated Press. He said the company is “shocked and surprised” at the vote results.
According to Agweek, tensions escalated in the plants after the company introduced “shadowers,” or scabs, to learn workers’ jobs as part of its “contingency plan.” On July 18 Ingulsrud notified union workers to clear out their lockers and workspaces. The next day workers were told that “non-union personnel would be on-site during the week to observe various positions,” Agweek reported.
On the first day of the lockout, American Crystal began bringing in vanloads of “replacement workers.” They were hired by Strom Engineering, an anti-labor, scab-supply outfit.
In the days and weeks leading up to the contract deadline, hundreds of sugar workers organized protests in towns where the plants are located.
American Crystal is also demanding the ability to outsource work, to replace union work with nonunion contract workers, and to erode seniority. The company would have sole discretion on seniority rights.
Workers at American Crystal are organized into two tiers: year-round employees and so-called campaign workers, who work from the fall harvest through the beet-slicing campaign the next spring and receive worse wages and benefits. There are currently about 1,000 full-time and 263 campaign workers.
Under the prior contract, a worker qualifies as full time after working 75 percent of scheduled workdays in a year. The company is now seeking to raise the bar to 85 percent for all future workers.
That would mean a widening of the two-tier system.
Support for the locked-out BCTGM members is visible at the picket lines, both from union and nonunion workers. People driving by honk and give the thumbs up. Some donate water and food. In Moorhead a worker stopped his car in front of the pickets, rolled down his window, and yelled: “My union, the IBEW, called me and told me to come join the picket line.”
In Hillsboro signs expressing solidarity are up in the town’s bars. The owner of a block of stores donated an empty storefront to the union, which is now its headquarters.
In a letter to all locals in Teamsters Joint Council 32, covering Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota, council president Susan Mauren wrote: “We are asking that Teamsters do not provide services or make deliveries to any of the American Crystal Sugar facilities during this lockout.”
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