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10 August, 2005ICEM News releaNo. 55/2001se
A three-month strike at food and agrochemicals multinational Bunge has ended in the USA after union members narrowly voted on 5 August to accept an offer from the company. The new 32-month contract [collective agreement] covers 200 hourly workers at Bunge's soybean and dry corn milling facility in Danville, Illinois.
The campaign was marked by union solidarity across national and sectoral frontiers.
"We are not ecstatic about the contract, which is reflected in the close vote," said Bill Gibbons. He is the regional president of the US Bunge workers' union, PACE. "But," he added, "there is no doubt that we forced the company to drop many of the unjust economic cuts and contract changes aimed at dramatically reducing worker rights. We obtained a new contract due to the courage and solidarity of our local union members and their leaders and a mounting campaign against the company."
Gibbons paid tribute to the help received from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), as well as their affiliated unions in Brazil and Argentina, where Bunge has major operations. IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs and Latin American food and fertiliser workers' unions all pressed Bunge to bargain in good faith with the Illinois workers. PACE is affiliated to both the ICEM and the IUF.
The union also thanked American farmers' organisations and the national labour federation AFL-CIO for their support, as well as Friends of the Earth for alerting the US Securities and Exchange Commission and investors to Bunge's potential problems with the use of genetically modified organisms.
PACE believes that the Danville dispute could have been settled much earlier for "pennies on the dollar", and the company's behaviour has left a legacy of bitterness.
"We intend to closely monitor Bunge and alert collectively-bargained pension funds, shareholders and potential investors about the company's debt problems, continuing crises in South America, potential dumping of shares by family members, the possible presence of genetically modified organisms in its human food products and emerging labour disputes wherever and whenever they arise," said PACE Director of Special Projects Joseph Drexler. "We have laid the first bricks in a foundation that could eventually lead to a global network among unions, farmers and food-safety advocates worldwide."
The campaign was marked by union solidarity across national and sectoral frontiers.
"We are not ecstatic about the contract, which is reflected in the close vote," said Bill Gibbons. He is the regional president of the US Bunge workers' union, PACE. "But," he added, "there is no doubt that we forced the company to drop many of the unjust economic cuts and contract changes aimed at dramatically reducing worker rights. We obtained a new contract due to the courage and solidarity of our local union members and their leaders and a mounting campaign against the company."
Gibbons paid tribute to the help received from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), as well as their affiliated unions in Brazil and Argentina, where Bunge has major operations. IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald, ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs and Latin American food and fertiliser workers' unions all pressed Bunge to bargain in good faith with the Illinois workers. PACE is affiliated to both the ICEM and the IUF.
The union also thanked American farmers' organisations and the national labour federation AFL-CIO for their support, as well as Friends of the Earth for alerting the US Securities and Exchange Commission and investors to Bunge's potential problems with the use of genetically modified organisms.
PACE believes that the Danville dispute could have been settled much earlier for "pennies on the dollar", and the company's behaviour has left a legacy of bitterness.
"We intend to closely monitor Bunge and alert collectively-bargained pension funds, shareholders and potential investors about the company's debt problems, continuing crises in South America, potential dumping of shares by family members, the possible presence of genetically modified organisms in its human food products and emerging labour disputes wherever and whenever they arise," said PACE Director of Special Projects Joseph Drexler. "We have laid the first bricks in a foundation that could eventually lead to a global network among unions, farmers and food-safety advocates worldwide."