Got this in email. Quite a reminder of the state of Labor in America today. Please join in boycotting Crystal Sugar.

Corporate greed isn’t sweet no matter how many spoons of sugar you take with it. Just ask the sugar beet workers who have been locked out by American Crystal Sugar (ACS) for more than a year.

Despite record profits for ACS last year—including giving $2.4 million in compensation to CEO David Berg—the company’s board demanded cuts to workers’ health care coverage and elimination of seniority rights. When workers offered another proposal, the ACS board decided to lock them out and hired less-skilled replacement workers, eerily similar to what happened with NFL refs. And we saw how well that worked out.

Now, 14 months later, 1,300 families still are cut off from their income and health care.

Sign the pledge now to boycott American Crystal Sugar products.

Today, working families throughout the country are launching a boycott of American Crystal Sugar products until CEO Berg and the company end the lockout and come back to the table with workers to negotiate a fair contract.

Many of these workers have been with ACS for decades and helped build the company to be a leader in the industry. Workers want to rejoin the ACS family, but shouldn’t be expected to give up their voice on the job.

This isn’t just about the workers and their families. The greed of Berg and ACS board members is taking an economic toll on communities across the Midwest.

Sugar beet farmers are being forced to “turn under” their crops and are seeing significantly lower payments for their beets compared with what they get from other sugar producers. Small businesses are losing revenue because workers and their families can’t spend like they did before the lockout. Berg and his cronies’ actions even are hurting ACS shareholders.

Making record profits while giving working families and communities the shaft is just plain wrong.

It’s time to stand together against American Crystal Sugar greed—join the boycott until American Crystal Sugar ends the lockout and negotiates a fair contract:

http://go.aflcio.org/StopCrystalSugarGreed

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO