By Allen Myers
How can workers "cooperate" with an employer whose response to an industrial hazard is "You've got to die sometime"? Over the last two years, workers at the A.E. Staley plant in midwestern Decatur, Illinois, have learned that "cooperation" with the boss means — as well as contempt for safety — 12-hour shifts, sharply reduced wages and open union-busting by the company.
Some 750 workers at Staley have been locked out now for 14 months. Their struggle to defend their rights, wages and working conditions has become a test case of what corporate greed can get away with.
Working at Staley — which makes corn-based products, primarily sweeteners — has never been idyllic, but the workers there now look at the pre-1988 period as almost a golden age. That was the year in which the local family-owned company was sold to the British multinational Tate & Lyle.
Things soon began to change. In the early '70s, Staley's owners continued paying health insurance premium for the employees even while they were on strike in a contract dispute. Tate & Lyle settled in as new owners by preparing for war against their work force.
In language that will be familiar to most Australian workers, the management talked about "improving competitive position" by means of "a cooperative effort of all people employed in the plant", by "elimination of we/they perceptions" and similar buzz words of "total quality management". Meanwhile, the company brought in a new "human resources" (personnel) manager who had developed his expertise at a paper plant in Maine — which had forced a strike and then replaced all 1200 of its workers.
About two years ago, Staley presented the union — Allied Industrial Workers of America (AIW) Local 837 — with demands for a new contract involving major concessions by the workers: an end to seniority in shift assignments, subcontracting of many jobs, reduced holidays, "givebacks" on insurance. Worst of all for most workers was the company's demand for a schedule of 12-hour rotating shifts.
In November 1992, Staley management unilaterally introduced their "take it or leave it" demands, including the 12-hour rotating shifts. This schedule involves workers putting in three or four days of 12-hour shifts, followed by three days off. If one week is on nights, the next is on days, and vice versa.
Disruptive and tiring as such a schedule is, the company appeared determined to multiply the difficulties it caused. Where two spouses worked in the plant, they were normally scheduled on opposite shifts. "They wanted us to come and beg to have our shifts changed", is the way the workers describe the company's attitude.
In the middle of their three "days off", workers were frequently called in for (compulsory) overtime. When this happened, the first four hours were paid at ordinary rates, rather than at overtime rates — which the company reduced even where it did agree to pay them. Overall, the workers calculate that fiddling with overtime by the company would cost an average employee US$5000-6000 a year.
The workers responded by beginning a work-to-rule campaign. Since many of the new Staley foremen and managers had been brought in because of their experience in bashing unions rather than in processing corn, following their instructions literally proved particularly disruptive to production.
The dispute escalated, and the company locked out the work force on June 27, 1993. The plant has since been operated by scabs — most of whom seem not too happy in Decatur, to judge from the fact that the company is continually advertising for more all over the United States.
Solidarity has been extended to the Staley workers by many unions, and there are support groups in many midwestern cities, formed by individuals and groups who recognise that, should Tate & Lyle win this battle, it will encourage many other employers to mount similar attacks on their workers.
On June 25, Staley workers, their families and supporters who had come to Decatur for a march and rally marking one year of the lockout were attacked by police with pepper gas and batons. Children as young as five were sprayed with gas; outside police experts who later witnessed a video of the assault said it was only a lucky accident that no-one had been killed.
The locked-out workers were initially able to obtain unemployment benefits, but those ran out in March. Despite increasing financial hardship, the workers in a recent poll supported continuing their struggle by a remarkable 94%.
Financial assistance and messages of support can be sent to: Staley Workers Food & Emergency Assistance Fund, c/o UPIU/AIW Local 7837, AFL-CIO, 2882 N. Dinneen, Decatur, IL 62526, USA.