Read our editorial on mass deportations here and on the significance of strikes here.
Since August 12, 43 workers at the W&W Dairy Plant in Monroe, Wisconsin have been on strike. This comes after the adoption at the plant of the E-Verify system, which allows employers to digitally verify the employment eligibility of each employee, in particular regarding immigration status. The workers are demanding three weeks of severance pay for each year worked as well as all remaining paid time off to be paid. The strike is a wildcat strike of the workers’ own initiative, not organized or authorized by any NLRB-recognized union, though multiple unions have voiced support for the strike.
The W&W workers’ strike is a direct response to the mass layoffs and the latent threats of ICE abductions presented by the monopoly’s adoption of E-Verify, a tool used to cut immigrant and migrant workers out of the workforce, and a means of destroying the means of production to overcome the crisis of overproduction. As year-round workers, the W&W employees are ineligible for work visas like the H-2A visa for temporary agricultural workers.
The monopoly group Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) acquired W&W Dairy on August 1, and the establishment of the E-Verify system came with that as DFA standard practice. The DFA requires its employees to be verified using the system by August 30 or face termination. Following this demand, about half of the employees resigned while 43 remained to fight, demanding a severance package against the looming immigration-status based layoffs. According to immigrant defense organization Voces de la Frontera, most of the striking workers have worked at the plant for over a decade. Following their organizing, workers faced threats from the DFA that the facility would be reported to ICE if they initiated a strike.
A response to the workers’ demands from management was expected on August 18, but none was ever given. Workers held a rally and press conference on August 19, where a letter from an anonymous striking worker was read aloud, stating, “we demand that the company respect our rights as workers, that it recognize our seniority, provide us with fair compensation for the years we have worked, and not resort to threats or retaliation.”
In addition to the threats of ICE to attempt to break the workers’ resistance, the company has brought in scabs, but due to their lack of training, production is significantly hindered.
In late August, Dairy Farmers of America faced another strike by workers at a milk plant in Le Mars, Iowa, for the establishment of a contract with the Teamsters, which was achieved.
E-Verify, which has existed since 1996, has increased in adoption alongside the intensification of mass deportations and is used as a tool to cut undocumented workers out of the workforce in order to resolve the crisis of overproduction, forming part of the US imperialists’ campaign of mass layoffs, terror against mainly immigrant workers, and attacks on the democratic rights of the people.
Image: A sign at the August 19 rally in Monroe, Wisconsin. Credit: Omar Waheed.
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