The rally included more than fifteen speakers including Steve Underwood, President of the local, Ken Sagar, President, Iowa Federation of Labor;  Jan Laue, Secretary-Treasurer, Iowa Federation of Labor;  AFL-CIO Bruce Hunter;  State Representative (D-Des Moines); Jerry Kearns, State Representative (D-Keokuk); Staff from Senator Harkin’s and Representative Loebsack’s office; Stephen Lech, member of United Steelworkers Local 7-669 currently locked out by Honeywell in Metropolis, Illinois, and others.  

During the rally Des Moines political blogger Buzz Malone asked the children of the locked out workers to join him on the porch of the labor temple which served as a stage for the rally. He asked one girl to shout, “Solidarity” as loud as possible. The girl shouted and smiled, and the crowd laughed.

The faces of children are not usually shown when the media portrays the story of the 237 workers locked out by the American subsidiary of French Multinational Corporation. It’s easier that way. Then more difficult questions would have to be answered. For instance, how are the families faring since Roquette America, Inc. locked them out of their jobs and their livelihoods six months ago?

One guy I talked to said he traveled all the way back from Kansas to attend the rally. He couldn’t find work in Keokuk where the unemployment rate is highest in the State at 10.1 percent. The town’s 11,000 residents mainly work in manufacturing, of which Roquette was among the larger employers. The median income for a household in the city is $31,586, 36% less than the national median of $49,777. 

So far as I know, no workers have crossed the picket lines, and despite the high unemployment rate, solidarity in the town is such that the company replaced the workers with people from out of state.
 
And despite the clear need in this community, unemployment greater than 8% for the previous 27 months and emotional stress caused to a community from a lockout, Governor Branstad recently said he was going to close Keokuk’s unemployment office which also services nearby Fort Madison.

Though the Rally was billed as “Bringing Wisconsin to Keokuk”, there weren’t the thousands of supporters that have made Madison a Labor Mecca since February. Driving through Keokuk, which the U.S. Government designated as a “Half-Breed Tract” in 1824 for children of European men and Indian women, you’ll see home-made yard signs and signs in stores and bars in support of the workers. But many of the run-down homes you see along the route into town do not have outward signs of support like what you would have seen in Madison.

There were, however, the families with their children. They served pulled pork and had a bake sale to help raise funds. A youth rock band played. There was a 50/50 drawing and sold t-shirts that read “Stand UP” in block letters. One locked out woman has picketed in front of the plant on all but four days over the past six months.

The company has spent millions of dollars avoiding bargaining in good faith with the workers which they locked out after only two weeks of negotiations. Roquette cancelled the last negotiations and has since not returned proposals emailed to them by the union saying they were too busy to continue negotiations.

If you haven’t already, contact Governor Branstad’s office about this shameful lockout of working families by a multinational corporation worth billions of dollars.