Labor takes its lumps.

PositionAFL-CIO, United Paperworkers Union sell out strikers at A.E. Staley Co. - Editorial

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In late January, some Staley workers came through Madison, Wisconsin, to tell their side of a tawdry story--the story of labor's demise, circa 1996.

For two and a half years, the workers at the A.E. Staley Company in Decatur, Illinois, had come to represent a new labor militancy among the rank and file, a willingness to stand up and fight against predatory multinationals. The Staley workers were part of a valiant group of unionists challenging corporate power in what became known as a "war zone" in central Illinois. The war included the workers at Caterpillar and at Bridgestone/Firestone. Now the war is over; the workers have lost.

In June 1993, Staley, a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle, locked out its workers. The local union responded aggressively with a corporate campaign against Staley's corn-syrup customers, including the Miller Brewing Company and PepsiCo. And the workers took their cause to the streets: they organized mass protests, for which they were pepper-gassed by police. They pleaded their case before the AFL-CIO executive council, and one Staley worker went on a hunger strike for several weeks to dramatize their plight.

All for naught.

The Staley workers voted to accept a contract designed to bust their union on December 22. The vote was close--286 to 226--on a settlement virtually equivalent to the two that the United Paperworkers Local 7837 had already defeated.

The new contract cuts the number of union jobs from 762 at the time of the lockout to 250 by 1997; gives the company unlimited subcontracting rights; institutes twelve-hour shifts rotating every thirty days, and mandatory overtime without overtime pay; punishes scab harassment with immediate firing; and grants no amnesty to workers fired for union activities.

The international union is in no small part responsible for the capitulation to Staley. The international worked hard behind the scenes to overthrow Dave Watts, the local president, and to replace him with a president willing to cut a deal, any deal. The strategy succeeded on December 12, when the membership threw out Watts and elected Jim Shinall by a 249-to-201 vote. Within a few days, the strikers settled with Staley.

The coup de grace came on January 16, at a meeting at the union hall. "The newly elected president of the local union didn't want people in there who had opposed the settlement," says Watts. "When we went to the podium and put proper motions on the floor, the police were...

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