Editorial Error

My fiance and I picked up the latest issue of HPR today and read this article. The last paragraph of the article talks about American Crystal Sugar union workers being racist. It talks about the giant inflatable rat, with the monkey hung by a noose, and how it symbolizes an African American. This is very far from the truth, and I would like to clear a few things up.

First of all, there is a difference between a STRIKE and a LOCKOUT. Union workers are LOCKED OUT of their jobs right now. This was not something they chose, but something the company chose, as an agreement was not reached on the proposed contract. As far as the hanging monkey goes; when the union workers were locked out, American Crystal Sugar stated that “a MONKEY could do their jobs.” The monkey hanging from the noose symbolizes the union workers basically being “choked out” by the company, which was why it was hanging from the rat, which symbolizes the company. This said monkey, has nothing to do with African Americans, whatsoever. To jump to these “racist” conclusions just shows that there is some ignorance in the community. To be completely fair, the man who hung the monkey from the rat, has African American children of his own, and one of the international union representatives is also an African American.

When there is a group of 10, 50, 100, or 1300 people in this case, of course there will be racism. I’m not going to say that there hasn’t been any racism coming from this situation, but racism goes all ways. American Crystal Sugar has a very diverse amount of people working for them. Whether they be Hispanic, Caucasion, African American, Native American, or whatever- all of these people have worked along side of each other for years. Now they’re doing the same thing on the other side of the line, fighting for their jobs.

I really think that if there is going to be an article like this saying that the union workers are racist, there should also be articles on the sexual harassment coming from some of the replacement workers, or about how close to 40 of them (probably more) have been fired because of felonies. American Crystal Sugar brought these people into our community. Do we really want our families to be subjected to this? OR, maybe we should focus on the sanitation factor. Replacement workers have been seen smoking cigarettes and urinating outside of the building. If they aren’t taking their time to go use a real restroom, why should we assume that they are going to take time to find a sink to wash their hands? This is sugar we use on a daily basis. Whether its used for your own cooking, or in your chocolate bar; this is sugar that we as Americans are consuming. OR maybe we should talk about the safety factor. Sugar dust is HIGHLY explosive. If there is an ignition source (replacement workers were also seen smoking at the top of the Wiebel Bin with the door wide open), there could be a chain reaction of explosions, destroying the entire factory, not to mention the workers inside, and parts of the community. This is something we should really be thinking about.

Union workers at American Crystal Sugar and their families have had their lives turned upside down for the last 2 months. Luckily in Minnesota, unemployment is an option. Sadly, for North Dakota workers, it is not. Some of these workers are really struggling to get by and support their families.

People are automatically going to believe what the media has to say, which is pretty sad. This lockout is effecting the community in a negative way. To be putting the union workers down and calling them racist is really disgusting. Here’s to hoping that if there is another article about this lockout, that the author actually does some homework to figure out what’s really going on. Go spend some time out on the picket line, I guarantee that you will leave with a different opinion.

Please think about what you are saying next time. A lot of people are really hurting from this lockout, and negative things like this are not helping anything.

-Anna Felix
Moorhead