Locked out union to bring American Crystal Sugar offer to vote

Source: Gfpeck, Flickr

After two days of negotiations with a federal mediator, the union representing 1,300 locked out workers at American Crystal Sugar will bring the company’s latest offer to a vote.

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union local 167G President John Riskey said in a statement that union negotiators weren’t happy with the company’s offer, but that union members deserved an opportunity to accept or reject it.

The workers in three states have been locked out since they overwhelmingly rejected a contract at the end of July, partly due to concerns about the cost of a new health care plan and provisions that would have allowed the company to use more subcontractors.

The company made some movement on the subcontracting front, according to the offer posted (PDF) on an American Crystal Sugar website. The company’s new offer promises that subcontractors won’t be able to replace union workers.

This is only the second time the union and company have met since the Aug. 1 lockout of union workers. The sticking point this time around appeared to be related to health care, according to the company (PDF). Union members say transitioning to the health plan used by the company’s non-union workers would cost workers too much. The company offered to push back implementation of the  non-union health plan by one year.

Riskey described these changes as “minimal” in his statement.

The company didn’t accept provisions offered by the union and condemned them for ”demands for free health care insurance,” saying the union had “no sense of urgency in getting our employees back to work.”

The union didn’t announce when the vote will take place.

The lockout has become increasingly divisive as it moves into its fourth month, with North Dakota state Sen. Tim Mathern recently urging both sides to come to a resolution, the Associated Press reports.

“People are applying for welfare, applying for Medicaid, applying for food stamps,” Mathern said Monday. “They can’t feed their families.”

In an opinion posted on the Forum of Fargo-Moorhead Monday, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said the lockout could imperil the passage of protections for the sugar industry in Congress.

With American Crystal’s recent treatment of union workers, it’s going to be extremely difficult for organized labor to get behind the sugar program once again. Labor-friendly members of Congress from non-sugar producing areas will also have a hard time supporting an industry that is treating workers as poorly as American Crystal is right now.

American Crystal Sugar has stocked plants with temporary workers provided by Strom Engineering in Minnetonka, who the union says aren’t adequately trained. The regional body of the National Labor Relations Board dismissed complaints against the company at the end of September.

The lockout affects 1,300 union workers at facilities in Moorhead, East Grand Forks, Crookston, and Chaska, Minn.; Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D.; and Mason City, Iowa.