Minnetonka, MN company supplying strike breakers for American Crystal Sugar

[CatholicEdHead]

http://www.startribune.com/business/126860723.html

For more than half a century, a little-known Minnetonka firm called Strom Engineering has provided troops to help companies across the country battle their unions.

American Crystal Sugar sought reinforcements from Strom when it locked out some 1,300 union employees in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa last week. Strom workers have stepped in at a steel mill for nearly a year, replaced striking mechanics at Northwest Airlines and kept a food plant running during a dispute.

...

"To us, Strom is basically an outfit that hires mercenaries to basically go in and destroy communities," said Mark Froemke, president of the AFL-CIO's West Area Labor Council and a member of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers union, which represents the sugar beet workers.

At Moorhead-based American Crystal, a farmer-owned co-op and the largest U.S. beet sugar producer, replacement workers arrived Monday morning in one of the biggest labor stoppages in the state in years. The company called in Strom's workers after union members overwhelmingly rejected a contract offer.