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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Optimism for Bunge Strikers? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Peter Miller and Sarah Carsey
Email: peterm (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
25 Jun 2001
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Mediated talks yield few results. Progressive farm groups sign-on in support of strikers. |
After meeting with a federal mediator today, striking workers and management at Bunge-Lauhoff Grain Company in Danville left the bargaining table with plans to meet again on Wednesday.
Robert Isaac, a member of the bargaining team for Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Workers Local 6-0972, said that the two sides met for about an hour at the Days Inn on the southwest side of Danville. Six representatives from the union and six from the company had face-to-face meetings, with the mediator present.
Isaac said that issues were discussed but that the only noticeable progress was the scheduling of another meeting in two days. Wednesday's meeting will be the third time that the parties have met since the strike began on May 16.
Nearly two hundred workers went on strike at the corn and soybean dry-milling factory after managers demanded numerous take-backs from earlier contracts. A union press release says that the company tried to expand management rights to hire and fire, freeze wages for some positions, and neglect pension needs. An anecdote heard on the picket line says that one Bunge worker with 42 years at the factory takes home a paltry $644 per month in pension.
Workers at Bunge earn from $13.15 to approximately $17 per hour. Medical insurance comes without vision or dental coverage but with premiums ranging from $64 to $130/week.
The company claimed that concessions were necessary to fund an expansion of the plant, which is among the most productive in North America. "The company says our workers are overpaid, yet we've made the Danville facility number one in the country for dry corn milling," said Randy Johnson, PACE project specialist. "We increased production at the facility these past four years by over 30 percent. While employing the same number of hourly workers, Bunge spent an estimated $40 million to improve the capacity of its Danville operation. It appears the company wants to pay for these improvements through concessions obtained from the workers."
Because the company is privately owned, it is not possible to evaluate the company's claim that it is impoverished. According to the company's website, "Bunge Limited is today one of the largest privately held businesses in the world, with major interests in commodity trading and handling, oilseed crushing and refining and food ingredients. Bunge Limited affiliates operate in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia."
Progressive Ag Groups Support Workers
In other strike-related news, PACE local 6-0972 announced that the National Family Farm Coalition, American Corngrowers Association, Missouri Rural Crisis Center and Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy sent a letter to John E. Klein, president and CEO of Bunge North America, expressing support for the striking workers at the Danville facility and condemning Bunge for demanding concessions from these workers.
http://www.paceunion.org/pressreleases1.htm
http://www.bungecorp.com/index.htm |
See also:
http://www.paceunion.org/pressreleases1.htm
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