Teamsters crash the party at Cenex Harvest States stockholder meeting

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4265

By Steve Share
4 December 2009

MINNEAPOLIS - Representatives of Teamsters Local 120 brought a message to stockholders attending the annual meeting of CHS, Inc. Thursday: negotiate in good faith with the union.
Teamsters Local 120 represents a group of 32 workers at a CHS fuel blending facility in Inver Grove Heights, where the company also maintains its corporate headquarters. Monday, the workers voted to authorize their leadership to call a strike.

At the company’s annual meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center today, a group of about one dozen Teamsters Local 120 representatives passed out fluorescent yellow leaflets to CHS stockholders in meeting rooms and in the hallways. In another show of union visibility, the brightly-painted Teamsters Local 120 semi-trailer truck parked outside the convention center.

Teamsters leaflet Cenex meeting

After passing out leaflets to CHS stockholders urging the company to negotiate in good faith, representatives of Teamsters Local 120 posed for a photo (above). The Teamsters Local 120 semi-trailer greeted delegates entering the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Photos by Steve Share

Teamsters union truck

“The company had record profits over the past four years. We’re asking the company to step up to the plate and share those profits with the workers,” explained Bryan Rademacher, Teamsters Local 120 business agent and recording secretary.

The workers’ three-year contract expired at the end of October 2009 and now a 30-day extension also has expired, Rademacher said.

During contract negotiations with CHS, he reported, “we met six to seven times, two times with federal mediators.” Another mediation session was scheduled for December 4.

FULL story at link.