Photo by Ty Rushing/Starting Line
Around 100 workers at Cargill Corn Milling in Cedar Rapids are officially on strike.
The three-year contract between Cargill—specifically the corn milling plant in the city—and workers unionized with Teamsters Local 238 expired at midnight Tuesday.
But workers didn’t vote to strike until hours later, on Tuesday evening, according to Sami Scheetz, an organizer with Teamsters and a Democratic state representative.
The vote, he told me, was “overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.”
In a press release Monday, just before the contract expired, Teamsters business agent Scott Punteney said discussions “have reached a critical point, with the company refusing to meet the fair and just demands of its workers.”
Punteney said “wages and working conditions” were workers’ demands, while Scheetz said it was “respect and economics.”
“Cargill has made it clear that they are unwilling to respect the workers who keep their operation running,” Punteney said.
Workers held their first rally Tuesday evening at the plant. A strike fund was not yet set up as of this writing.
An email to Cargill seeking comment on the negotiations was not immediately returned.
Cargill’s CEO Brian Sikes makes around $700,000 per year, according to Quartz.
Are you a current or former Cargill Cedar Rapids employee? I’d love to hear from you about the working conditions, wages, or negotiations happening. Email me.
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