MUSCATINE, Iowa — Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 86D never expected to be on the picket line for nearly a year.

Union members say they believed a new contract would be reached within days after Grain Processing Corp. locked out the entire union, plus about 60 non-union members, on Aug. 22, 2008, after failed contract negotiations.

The lockout is hurting the families of those without jobs.

“Union members don’t have insurance and many are behind on their mortgages. I just signed my kids up to receive free school supplies,” said union member Tony Newton. “After 26 years working for GPC, I never thought I’d be out here struggling.”

When the lockout began there were about 300 union members, that number has been reduced to around 250 after some have chosen retirement and others took jobs elsewhere, Newton said. GPC, a leading manufacturer and worldwide marketer of corn-based products, and the union have not been able to reach an agreement on the five-year contract that expired last year.

Contract workers and other employees are keeping GPC running, including workers from an Indiana-based GPC plant.

Newton was among the majority of union workers who got their last unemployment checks on July 17.

“We didn’t want to, but we’ve been able to find local programs to help us like the Salvation Army food pantry. I would guess lots of families will qualify for free lunches at schools,” Newton said.

Newton said union members won’t deny that GPC paid them well and that those workers are used to being the ones giving, rather than asking for charity.

“There are some members who look at it as begging, but to me it’s not begging. We didn’t ask to be locked out. We have to do what we can to support our families,” Newton said.

Local 86D has set up a hardship fund and local donors, as well as other UFCW chapters across the country,

have been contributing money for members in need. All union members who are struggling have been encouraged to apply for assistance, Newton said, adding that the hardship fund provides anonymous donations.

Early retirement

Bob Weatherman, 57, planned on working for GPC until he was 62 but wound up retiring on July 1 because being locked out was not paying the bills.

“The company was always a good place to work until about 10 years ago when new management took over. They don’t consider workers an asset,” said Weatherman, who worked 36 years for GPC.

Weatherman said he was forced to retire because he did not have insurance and he needed to start collecting his pension.

Since retiring, Weatherman has been traveling to other states to meet with unions to ask for donations to the hardship fund so that his fellow union members have help.

“The support has been overwhelming. I don’t care that I am retired. I will do what I can to help the Union,” he said.

Weatherman said the union will not give in to the company because GPC leadership was boasting record profits just months before the lockout, and now they are claiming they can’t afford to pay the workers.

“The workers have made GPC what it is. We are the ones who had been working nights, weekends, holidays and missing our kids’ baseball games to make the company No. 1. The leadership does not respect us,” Weatherman said. “GPC is not negotiation, it’s dictating.”

He pointed to language in the proposed contract that would oust seniority, reduce pension and add more opportunity for the company to outsource as the reason the union fears what GPC is trying to accomplish.

The contract already contained an outsourcing clause allowing them to hire outside of the union if they needed skilled labor, different equipment or more manpower.

“Why put something new into the contract if you aren’t going to use it? The new contract states, make no mistake, nothing should restrict or preclude the company from outsourcing any bargaining unity job,” Weatherman said. “Which means: you have no job security.”

Newton said at a union meetings two weeks ago a secret ballot vote was held allowing members to decide if they are interested in voting on the last proposal offered by GPC.

The union voted no, he said.