ICEM Affiliate PACE Organises DuPont Workers

A n ICEM affiliate, US-based Paper, Allied-Industrial, Energy, Chemical (PACE) Workers Union, successfully affiliated another union not part of the formal American labour movement. On 21 October, workers at DuPont Soy Polymers in Louisville, Kentucky, voted for collective bargaining representation by the preeminent oil, chemicals and paper union in the US.

The workers previously had been represented by the Independent Factory Workers Union (IFWU). In the US, with very few exceptions, Dupont workers either have representation by such stand-alone unions or have no union at all. The decision to join 300,000-member PACE marks the seventh such union at DuPont to throw in with the Nashville, Tennessee-based union.

"The committee decided it would be in the union's best interest to bring in some outside help," stated IFWU President Ronnie Sanders, adding that unions such as his "are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with multinational firms in terms of bargaining and basic representation rights of workers."

The plant with 50 union members produces specialty food ingredients from soy products. DuPont acquired the plant as part of its 1997 purchase of Protein Technologies from Ralston Purina.

Previously, workers at DuPont stand-alone unions in Buffalo, New York, Edgemoor, Delaware, Louisville, Kentucky (DuPontDow Elastomers), and three separate units in Deepwater, New Jersey, have voted to affiliate with PACE.