“They sent in a squad of union-busting specialists,” Robert Williams, who worked at the plant for 25 years, told Militant reporters. “They raised a hundred excuses of why they were going to close the plant. But in the end, they just had decided to get rid of it—and they decided it well over a year ago before any negotiations started. Now their operations are in Grammercy, Louisiana.”

“This is basically a case of corporate greed,” said IAM District 37 representative Gene Cobbins. “This company had intended to close the plant nearly a year ago. They never offered any alternative.”

Imperial Sugar shut down its sugar refinery here last year, throwing 325 workers on the street, according to an article in the May 30 Houston Chronicle. The article explains that management promised to keep its distribution and packaging facility open, where it employed roughly 130 workers, but decided to shut that down too, after it failed to get workers to accept major concessions.

Workers said the contract with the Machinists union at the plant did not expire until October 2003. But the company wanted the union to break the contract and vote on a new one with concessions on severance, seniority, and pay rates. The cuts would supposedly make the facility more “productive,” preventing a shutdown. The union refused to bring these proposals to a vote.

“It would have been like voting on your own destruction,” said Cobbins.

In the event of a plant shutdown, the existing agreement states that union members get severance benefits equivalent to between 20 and 60 hours pay for every year of service. In addition, most of the workers are due to receive Supplemental Unemployment Benefits, which the union had won, of roughly $100 per week to bring the amount received during layoffs up to 60 percent of regular pay. The company is refusing to honor either of these agreements.

“I’ve worked here for 22 years. I came in a week and a half after high school,” said Thomas Washington. “Now I get nothing. No severance, no supplemental, and no insurance. Not only that, but there’s nothing out there now. Nobody is hiring.”

Workers said the union has taken the case to arbitration. While the plant is closed, they want people to know the truth about what happened. “We don’t know if we’ll get what’s owed to us or not,” said Washington. “But we plan to be back again on Monday morning.”  
 
 
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