| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2001 |
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Nebraska Beef Workers Win at Labor Board When workers at the Nebraska Beef plant in Omaha stood up for their rights, seven were fired. Now, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is ruling on the side of the workers, issuing a complaint against the company for the illegal firings. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 271 filed charges last December on behalf of seven workers with the NLRB when Nebraska Beef fired them in retaliation for standing up to management and demanding safer working conditions. The NLRB issued a complaint against Nebraska Beef for illegally firing the workers bringing them one legal step away from complete vindication. The complaint will also force the company, which has refused to reach a settlement with the workers, to defend its actions during a public hearing to be scheduled. The firings occurred in the wake of an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) raid on Nebraska Beef's Omaha meatpacking plant, in which the agency detained more than 190 Latino workers. The INS also arrested plant managers for conspiring and executing a program that lures Mexican workers to Omaha with the promise of good jobs, transportation from the border, and decent living conditions. In the days following the INS raid, Nebraska Beef sped up the production line despite having 200 fewer workers to handle the work load. Many workers felt the speed of the line was just too fast?that the line speed was too dangerous to keep working. So the entire production department left the line and went to management to ask,"Slow the line down. We don't have enough people here to do this work safely." Nebraska Beef refused to listen to the workers' concerns about safety. Instead, it fired seven of the workers who were brave enough to stand up for their rights. "I asserted my rights that day because I knew I was protected, it was against the law what they did. We all have the right in this country to address our working conditions to management," said Sara Gonzales, a fired Nebraska Beef worker. "The union was behind us to help us know our rights. Imagine, if the union helps me this much from outside the plant, we could do much more with the UFCW inside the plant," said Salvador Garcia, another fired Nebraska Beef worker. The UFCW has been working with Omaha Together/One Community to organize meatpacking workers in the Omaha area since last spring. Over the past four months, the UFCW and OTOC have continued to work closely with the workers at Nebraska Beef to seek justice for the fired workers and to mobilize current workers to stand up for a voice on the job. "The religious community in Omaha has been supporting the workers' efforts in meatpacking for several years," said Father John Buckson, an OTOC leader and Acting Pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Agnes. "Our faith traditions call for us to continue to stand behind workers in their effort to organize for a voice on the job. We don't tolerate management reprisals to workers who choose to exercise their legal right to have a voice at work." More than 4,000 workers in Omaha's meatpacking industry do not have union representation, yet. The UFCW, working closely with OTOC, launched a campaign in June 2000 to organize and give a voice to all the non-union workers in Omaha. "I have worked in a packinghouse before that has a union and I know what it's like to be represented," said Gonzales. "We can't do this alone. We need to get together and organize our union." -30- |
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