Minneapolis Black community fights racist police dragnet RAČISMAY

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an Peter Rachleff, this is called surface other men were working when one had to bargaining. "It's a delaying tactic. For leave to go to the doctor. After that workST. PAUL, Minn.—In July 1991, every week they [management] hold on, er left, the line speed was not reduced and workers at Long Prairie Packing in South one or two union sympathizers get fed up the men could not keep up. Valdez, who St. Paul voted 92 to 65 to join the Unit- and quit, moving on to the next packing- was the only one there who spoke any ed Food and Commercial Workers Union house or some other low-wage job.

"The company expects the turnover the spot and was later fired. union was decertified by a vote of 97 to will work in its favor. It's been very suc- In an impressive demonstration of soli68. cessful. Looking at the 1980s, you'll see darity, the other four workers walked out What happened in the meantime is a that only half of all elections that unions in protest. A plantwide union meeting tragic case of a union being outwitted, have won have resulted in contracts."

Long Prairie is a subsidiary of a com- their support. However, since there was ny that pays $6 an hour for a filthy, pany called Rosen's Diversified no union contract, Valdez never did get dangerous job, makes the workers buy Industries, which owns 11 businesses, his job back. their own tools, and whose employees including the Upper Midwest's largest This incident showed the potential tor cite unsafe working conditions as their supplier of farm chemicals. The company organizing the workers in the plant, but had estimated revenues of $425 million the union never mobilized that potential When the workers voted for the union, in 1990. More than half of that, or about or effectively responded to Long Prairie's they expected that a contract would be $250 million, comes from the packing incessant anti-union bribery and blacknegotiated between Long Prairie and the plants they own.

Rosen's Diversified bought the South contact with the new members for the time, and all the many grievances at the St. Paul plant three years ago; the union whole period of the stagnant negotiating plant. had been broken by the previous owner process.

Long Prairie hired the Omaha, Neb., 10 years ago. The work force is largely The UFCW leadership has the mistakunion-busting consulting firm of Berens Hispanic, and the workers have long en idea that government intervention & Tate to direct their "negotiations" with complained of racist harassment by super- would favor the workers. The union leadBy the time the UFCW realized that that would substitute binding arbitration eral labor law then dictated that since management was not going to sit down for negotiations in the negotiation of first there was still no contract, the pro-union and negotiate in good faith, and that no contracts. Their response to the defeat in vote should be set aside and a new vote court or government official was going to South St. Paul was to announce plans to held. compel them to do so, valuable time had petition and lobby the Minnesota legislaAccording to labor activist and histori- been lost. Most of the workers who were ture in favor of this bill last August.

4 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1992 Pizza Shack, a cop hangout. Witnesses say the shots were fired by two young Black men.

From the moment the suspects' description went out over the police radios, the Democratic Party mayor, city council, police department, and the Police Officers Federation (the so-called police union) dropped any pretense of probable cause or due process. The most glaring incidents of brutality were excused as aggressive law enforcement."

Immediately, police put out the word that the killing was done by gang members, probably in retaliation for the beating by transit police the day before of a blind Black man who was 10 cents short of bus fare.

To this day, the police have presented no evidence of gang involvement other than references to anonymous informants.

Last May, an organization called United for Peace was formed by Minneapolis gang leaders opposed to violence between gangs and in the city as a whole. A deputy police chief approached Sharif Willis, president of the group, for some aid and advice. A faction in the police department and the federation opposed this relationship.

The day of the shooting, police first detained Willis at police headquarters for three hours without charges and later showed up at his home in force. According to those present, up to 50 police trained rifles on the house. The people inside immediately called community leaders and the media to head off police plans to open fire and provoke a shootout.

Willis, who was not inside the house, was handcuffed outside. "I told them I'd have everybody come out if that's what they wanted but they didn't want that. They wanted a media event.

A news crew arrived, the house was (UFCW). Fourteen months later, the outorganized, and outgunned by a companumber one concer.

UFCW addressing safety, wages, overthe UPCW. The company stalled and visors.

stonewalled until a year had passed. Fedsearched and no guns were found.

The Star-Tribune newspaper reported that Willis had helped police identify suspects, which Willis flatly denies, and then took four days to correct the error. This, plus the long and pointless detention of Willis earlier in the day, was a clear attempt to label him as a police informant.

Two men arrested at Willis's home and two more men arrested two days later were all released on Sept. 28 due to lack of evidence. Police Chief Laux held a news conference that day, "breaking ties" with Willis and United for Peace (ties which United for Peace leaders say never existed to start with) and claiming that Willis is involved in unspecified criminal behavior.

Al Berryman, head of the Police Officers Federation, the cop "union", issued a list of demands to the City Council for more funding and increased police powers and for establishing ties with "responsible" organizations, like the Urban League. The group CYNTHIA BURKE/SOCIALIST ACTON bought radio time to broadcast an ad designed to whip up racist fears among whites and warning Blacks that "violence must stop or the jobs will continue to leave, your neighbors will keep moving."

Within hours after the start of the police dragnet, leaders of the movement against police brutality swung into action. This movement has a proud record of consistency and visibility going back for years. The largest demonstration in the country in response to the acquittal verdict in the cop beating of Rodney King-over 6000 peopletook place in Minneapolis.

A Sept. 29 press conference was organized, which denounced the reign of terror and produced firsthand victims and witnesses. Those present at the conference heard firsthand from Leroy Gray, the blind and handicapped man who was beaten by transit police.

Prominent organizers of the news conference-and an Oct. 3 speakout and Oct. 10 active in the 1991 organizing drive bad been fired on trumped up charges or had simply given up in despair and no longer The UFEW never understood the need to go directly to the members and enlist their aid in pressuring Long Prairie.

Last Pebruary, Raul Valdez, an employee in the boning room, and five English, objected. He was sent home on tollowed, where all the workers pledged mail. In fact, the union had only minimal ers pinned their hopes on passing a bill rally—were Chris Nisan, central movement leader and Socialist Workers Party (SWP) candidate for U.S. Congress, and Mel Reeves, editor of the Minneapolis Spokesman newspaper.

About 200 people of all ages and races attended the speakout. Chris Nisan told the crowd, "We will not allow the murder of Officer Haaf to obscure the reality of who is reponsible for the climate of hatred, fear, and violence in which we are forced to live the police and the government."

Denise Bender-Lacy described how her 19-year-old son and 16-year-old nephew were taken to police headquarters "intimidated and humiliated and called every conceivable name in the book."

Residents said that police put black "mourning bands" for officer Haaf on their badges and conveniently taped across their badge numbers so that they could not be identified by their victims.

The speak-out demanded justice for LeRoy Gray and other recent victims, an end to the cop crackdown, an end to the slander and frameup of those alleged to have been involved in the murder of Officer Haaf-such as Sharif Willis, who addressed the meeting-and an end to threats of violence against anti-police brutality activists.

On Nov. 17, police arrested and charged two men and a 15 year-old boy with the Haaf slaying. The two men were among those originally detained right after the shooting and released for lack of evidence.

One man had come in to police headquarters voluntarily shortly after the shooting accompanied by his employer to deny involvement.

A third man was charged but was not arrested until a week later. The man, Mwati Mckenzie, contacted United for Peace from Chicago, where he was staying when he learned that a nationwide search for him was underway.

Mckenzie feared that Chicago or Minneapolis police might kill him if he turned himself in without escorts with cameras. United for Peace leaders, along with KARE-TV reporters flew with McKenzie from Chicago to Minneapolis, where Mckenzie surrendered to police. He told United for Peace he wants only to clear his name.

The big-business media and the police are busily convicting the men before the trial. This can seen in a recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, which congratulates the police for doing an "admirable job," speaks of the need for police to feel appreciated, and concludes with a ringing "well done" for Chief Laux and his police force.

About three weeks before the second union election, the UFCW organized a solidarity party, supposedly to publicize and build support for the organizing drive. In reality, the rally was a thinly disguised campaign rally for state and local Democratic Party candidates, who stood to benefit from being associated with a cause as widely respected within the labor movement as that of the Long Prairie workers.

Meanwhile, Long Prairie management had its strategy well planned, as the deadline for the contract passed and the second vote came closer. The company sponsored free beer busts and dinners for the employees. Privately, supervisors told workers that those who voted for the union would be fired and those who voted "no" would get raises.

The company held captive meetings where speakers told the workers that the union only wanted their money. If the union was serious, they declared, why was there still nothing to show for the pro-union vote months ago?

On the eve of the vote, the company sent a personal letter to the wives of all the workers warning them that the union would force their husbands out on strike, take dues money, and give nothing in return.

A rank-and-file committee was formed, which wrote leaflets and organized within the plant. But the committee operated on a shoestring without the resources necessary to counter Long Prairie's propaganda. These workers have not given up, however. They are continuing to draw out the lessons of the election, as they lay plans for a renewed drive at the plant.

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Meatpacking workers fight for union in spite of weak organizing worked at Long Prairie. drive, ineffective leadership