American Crystal Sugar workers to vote on new contract

Union workers at Moorhead based American Crystal Sugar Company vote Thursday on a five-year contract the company calls a final offer.

The two sides met eight times before reaching an impasse on May 11.

American Crystal is offering workers an annual three percent raise in each of the first four years of the contract and 2.75 percent the final year. The contract also offers small increases in pension and death benefits. In addition, if the contract is approved by May 22, American Crystal will pay each worker a signing bonus of $2,250.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union local president John Riskey says the contract would cover about 1,200 workers at five Red River Valley sugar beet factories and at sugar storage facilities in Chaska, Minn., and Mason City, Iowa.

If union members reject the contract, negotiators will return to the bargaining table in June in an effort to reach a deal before the current contract expires July 31.

In 2011, American Crystal Sugar locked out union employees and hired temporary replacement workers in a bitter contract dispute that lasted nearly two years.