North Dakota workers seek unemployment compensation during lockouts

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_5429

6 February 2013

BISMARCK, N.D. - Imagine being locked out of your job for 19 months. Nineteen months with no paycheck, seeing your savings depleted, your home lost to foreclosure, your children deprived of basic needs like clothing and school supplies.

Some 1,300 workers at American Crystal Sugar have been enduring such an existence since Aug. 1, 2011. Those who live in Minnesota and Iowa have been able to depend on one lifeline – unemployment insurance. But the 420 who work at the Crystal Sugar plants in Hillsboro and Drayton, North Dakota, receive no unemployment benefits whatsoever.

Last week, the workers were among those who testified in favor of legislation that would change North Dakota law to require companies that lock out their employees to pay unemployment benefits.

If the legislation, Senate Bill 2224, were to pass, it would affect only future lockouts. Even so, Gayln Olson, president of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco & Grain Millers Local 372G at the Hillsboro factory, and several other locked-out BCTGM members drove through a snowstorm to get to the state Capitol to voice their support.

FULL story at link.