The French-based sugar and starch maker Roquette Frères opened its production plant in Keokuk, Iowa, 20 years ago, and its promise to create high-quality jobs was a key factor in winning support from local workers and local and state governments. Over the years, the firm has enjoyed tens of millions of dollars in tax benefits and other financial help.

But now, the multinational corporation is breaking its jobs promise to the community and its families by locking out 240 workers at its Keokuk corn milling plant and demanding massive wage, pension and health care concessions from the members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 48G.

The workers are waging their battle for justice both locally and globally.  They are mounting a petition drive urging the city, county and state to refrain from awarding the company any additional grants, tax breaks and other economic assistance until Roquette ends the lockout and negotiates in good faith.

At the global level, they filed an international complaint against Roquette. In addition, the AFL-CIO, along with the International Union of Food Workers (IUF) and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), lodged a formal complaint wit the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) charging Roquette with violating the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.

The guidelines oblige governments to ensure that transnational companies headquartered in or operating on their territory comply with internationally agreed human rights standards, including guaranteeing workers the freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The complaint charges Roquette’s lockout of the workers was premeditated. According to the complaint:

The fact that replacement workers were instantly available to operate a complex plant requiring a trained, specialized workforce immediately after the lockout was implemented indicates a premeditated plan to lock out the workers, if necessary for a prolonged period, in order to impose a collective agreement on the company’s unilateral terms and/or to permanently replace the existing workforce. Such an operation would have required sophisticated planning to have been under way no later than August, as part of management’s aggressive drive to weaken the union.

The complaint calls on the U.S. National Contact Point for the Guidelines to facilitate a resolution to the dispute and to involve France, the government of the home country, in these efforts. Click here to read the full complaint.

On the ground in Iowa, workers and their allies are building local support through marches, rallies and a petition drive. BCTGM says the company’s outrageous demands include:

• Broad discretion to replace current workers with temporary employees.
• A pay cut of $4 an hour for new hires and a four-year wage freeze for current workers.
• Pension freeze for current workers and eliminating it for new hires.
• Eliminating current sick, maternity and personal leaves.
• Drastically increasing health insurance premiums.

The workers will present the petition urging an end to local and state subsidies for Roquette  to the Iowa Economic Development Board meeting in Des Moines on Jan. 20, as well as deliver it to the meeting of the Keokuk City Council on the same date.

If you are in Iowa and want to sign the petition and support the Roquette workers, you can contact Local 48G by phone at 319-524-1249 or by e-mail at bctgm48G@qwestoffice.net.

Click here for more background on the lockout for BCTGM.