This is how Obdulia Flores, a worker on the kill floor of the Dakota Premium Foods plant here, summed up the union victory there.

On October 15 production workers at this beef slaughterhouse voted 149–21 for a contract between Local 789 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and Dakota Premium. The workers had finally won union recognition.

The bosses at Dakota had vowed never to negotiate with the union or sign a contract. They had carried out a decade-long offensive to prevent a union in the plant by using intimidation, firings, legal maneuvers, deceit, and bribery. In the end they were beaten by the unity and persistence of the workers.

Two hundred production workers are employed at Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a subsidiary of Rosen’s Diversified, one of the 10 largest beef packing companies in the United States. The majority of workers are originally from Mexico and Central America. Since June 1, 2000, a hard-fought battle has been waged between the company and the workers in the plant.

That day, some 100 workers carried out a more than seven-hour sit-down strike. The purpose was to fight the increased line speed imposed by the company and to stop the company from forcing workers to work while injured. Caught off guard by the swiftness and united action of the workers, the company granted important concessions on these and other issues. The strength the workers exercised in acting together gave them renewed self-confidence.

On Nov. 6, six leading participants in the union struggle at Dakota Premium Foods got together to tell the Militant the story of their victory.

Obdulia Flores, Yesenia Rosales, and José Flores have worked in the kill department. Miguel Olvera, José Mateo and Samuel Farley work in the fabrication department, comprised of boning and packaging. Five of the six workers took part in the June 2000 sit-down strike. Rosales, who was hired last November, soon found herself involved in the fight in order to defend her rights on the job.  
 
What led to sit-down strike
What were conditions in the plant before the sit-down strike?

"Conditions inside the plant got very bad," said Miguel Olvera, who was hired in 1995. "The company would try to force workers who were injured on the job to leave the plant. There was no professional training for workers on how to use the knives. The company tried to get workers to blame each other for problems."

In September 1992, the UFCW local at the Dakota plant was decertified after failing to win a contract following a union representation election in July 1991. During the period before the decertification vote, the company had waged a propaganda offensive against the union, arguing that it was too weak to win a contract. The main leader of the pro-union workers inside the plant was offered a job as supervisor and accepted.

In the fall of 1999 and spring of 2000, the company increased the line speed significantly. "Workers in the boning department were being pushed to their limits," said Samuel Farley. "Workers could not keep up the pace and meat was piled up everywhere." A number of workers were being forced to work while injured.

During the sit-down strike, some workers went to the Local 789 hall, got union organizing literature, and returned to the plant to begin a new effort to organize a union. The June 1 sit-down kicked off a seven-week battle to organize the plant and win a union representation election. The vote was set for July 21.

The company tried to break the organizing drive. "After the sit-down, the first attack was against Enrique Flores Jr., my son," said Obdulia Flores. "The company held back his paycheck, harassed him, and cut back his hours until he quit."

Mateo added, "During the strike, I went and spoke to the leaders of UFCW Local 789. Enrique Flores Jr. was the translator. When the head of personnel, Evelyn Acosta, found out the role he had played, she immediately went after him."

Olvera said, "If you were helping to organize the union, the company looked for any pretext to attack or suspend you."

Farley noted, "After the sit-down a lot of workers took a vacation in Mexico. They assumed they could come back to their jobs, as they had done previously. This time they could not come back to their jobs. Many workers were pushed out of the plant."

How did the workers counter these tactics? "The important thing is workers organized themselves inside the plant," Olvera said. "The company organized a couple of meetings at a hotel and offered free food and drink. They thought they could buy some of us off."

Obdulia Flores added that "every time they did this, it was only because we had just had a big pro-union meeting at the union hall."  
 
Campaign to win union election
Campaigning to win the vote, pro-union workers discussed with co-workers why they needed to organize. Several meetings were held at the union hall, some of them extensive discussions where a number of workers spoke, along with union president Bill Pearson.

Workers produced and distributed an in-plant newsletter of the union organizing campaign, The Workers’ Voice. It explained the issues in the fight and took on and rebutted numerous company lies. The union also organized a systematic effort to talk to each worker individually. Led by Pearson, the UFCW Local 789 officers backed the union representation drive.

The developing union of the workers in the plant defended each worker who came under attack. José Flores recounted his experience. "The company tried to fire me around the time of the union vote. They accused me of urinating on some meat. It was a lie. The company was attacking me because I was for the union and I told others to be for the union. They suspended me for a month. During that time, I and other workers went to the personnel office. The head of personnel took down everyone’s name, implying they would all be fired. The Workers’ Voice carried my story. Thanks to the support of my co-workers, I was reinstated."

On July 21, 2000, these efforts bore fruit. Workers voted 112–71 for the union--a solid mandate.

Seeking to stall the workers’ union drive and make them feel their efforts were all for nothing, the company repeatedly--and unsuccessfully--appealed the election results, going before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) at three different levels. Over the following months, the company--driven by its competition with other slaughterhouses--kept trying to increase the line speed and pressing workers, who resisted.  
 
Workers’ continue resistance
"One day I asked the supervisor to give me permission to go to the bathroom five different times," Yesenia Rosales said. "He refused. As a result I soiled myself. Another time I had to use the bathroom and a supervisor allowed me to go. Evelyn Acosta found out and told me I could not have gotten permission. The supervisor then denied he had given me permission. As a result I was disciplined. But I won’t quit this job. I want to continue this fight."

Rosales explained that she has been wearing a union sticker on her hardhat. It said, "Sí se puede" (yes, it is possible). Now it says, "Sí se pudo" (yes, it was possible).

"I and two other women working in the kill have orange T-shirts that have a message for the company," she said. "We wear them when we feel the company is trying to go after us. The T-shirt says, in English, ‘What’s your problem?’ Evelyn Acosta now says workers cannot wear orange T-shirts--they must be white."

"It’s because of how we defend ourselves that the company became afraid of us," Rosales stressed.

Since the sit-down, a number of unionists have worked together in taking responsibility for leading the fight. After the union representation victory, a leadership committee of workers inside the plant was formalized, the Communications Committee. They organized their meetings so as to enable workers newly active in the struggle or newly hired to attend and place an imprint on the fight. "The name of our committee says it all--workers have to communicate with each other and act together," said Obdulia Flores.

Olvera stated, "I think the most important thing is that you have to fight and fight and fight until you achieve victory. The company wanted to break our will to fight. It’s by sticking to our course that we achieved something."

Farley added, "Since the sit-down strike, we had a sense that we could have an impact on the company. The sit-down itself showed this most clearly. The history of our fight shows that every time we defend ourselves, the company has to take us into account."  
 
Workers reach out to other struggles
A number of workers who have been part of the leadership of the fight have reached out to other struggles and been impacted by them, Farley noted. "In the summer of 2000 a number of us went to a picket line of the Pepsi workers who were on strike. Some of us participated in a picket line of hotel workers striking in the Twin Cities. On May 5 of last year, a contingent of Dakota workers marched in the Cinco de Mayo parade in St. Paul to appeal for solidarity from Latino workers. We passed out many copies of a special edition of Workers’ Voice that told about our fight. It also publicized a meeting at a local church to rally for the right of immigrants to have a drivers license.

"These activities helped us get a better understanding that we are part of something bigger, that there are many struggles by working people, and that we can get support and strength from them."

Important aid in their fight came in the spring of 2001, when workers in the boning department of a unionized sister plant, Long Prairie Packing, carried out a 90-minute sit-down strike to protest the line speed. That plant, three and a half hours away in Long Prairie, Minnesota, is also a beef slaughterhouse owned by Rosen’s Diversified. The bosses there had been on an offensive to discipline and fire leading union workers. A contingent of Dakota workers traveled to Long Prairie to show solidarity with their fight.

Shortly afterward, the bosses at Dakota Premium Foods began demanding that some workers come into the personnel office and resubmit their social security cards to the company. A few workers were forced to quit. The company was hoping to intimidate many more.

Some months after the pro-union workers organized theWorkers’ Voice and the Communications Committee, the company countered by trying to organize a company newsletter, Bull Notes, and a company "Communications Committee." This had little effect.

In May of this year the company, having failed to stamp out workers’ resistance, finally decided to negotiate with the union.

The confrontation between the employer and the union continued in the negotiations. Company negotiators insisted on some major cutbacks in medical benefits and wanted to hold the line on wage increases. Members of the union negotiating committee--reinforced by the determination of the ranks--refused to agree to these concessions and insisted on some of the main needs of the workers.

The contract contained some important gains, especially given that it was a first contract. It established a seniority system and pay increases of 20–35 cents per hour for each year of the nearly five-year contract. It included a $1,000 signing bonus for most workers.

The union pushed back an attack on medical benefits: the contract includes no cutbacks in medical benefits at least until July 2003. The strength of the union was also seen in how workers responded on October 15, the day of the vote. Jenny Benton, one of the five newly elected shop stewards, explained, "The big majority of workers came to the meeting at the union hall. Those from boning and packaging went in a caravan. The balloting table was near the entrance of the hall. Workers could simply have voted and gone home. But everybody stayed to attend a meeting to discuss the contract proposal. Many had questions and spoke up in the discussion. The meeting lasted an hour and a half before workers voted."

The five workers who have been elected as shop stewards in the plant are Miguel Gutíerrez, Jenny Benton, and Samuel Farley in the boning and packaging department, and Enrique Flores and Deborah Miranda on the kill floor.

What lies ahead after these gains? Miguel Olvera stated, "The company has been on a drive to increase the line speed in the last few weeks, since October 15. I believe we are at the point where we will have to demonstrate to the company that the workers are opposed to their speedup. The supervisors and managers push us to the limit. Some of my co-workers just can’t keep up and the meat piles up. The supervisors stand back and laugh."

Obdulia Flores added, "Together we’ve learned not to fear the bosses. We’ve won a union, and the company now has to deal with us."
 
 
Related articles:
Unionist rejects bribe from Dakota Premium  
 
 
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