Locked Out Workers 200 Mile Trek - Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

Dozens of locked out American Crystal Union workers and supporters started a 200 mile trek from Drayton North Dakota to Moorhead today. That's where union leaders and American Crystal heads will be back at the negotiating table next week. Valley News live caught up with the caravan to hear how a road trip seeking support could help at this point.

It's been ten months since union workers have been locked out of their jobs. While not all of the folks who jumped on this caravan are American Crystal Sugar workers, all of them they feel strongly about what they describe as an injustice.

Fred Smith of Park Rapids Minnesota felt compelled to jump on board, "to me this is a national fight. Nobody should be treated that way. The workers here are fighting for us all and the dignity of all of us"

Mary Wagner of Saint Paul made it up here too, trying to get the message out, "I don't think people understand that it's a lockout and not a strike. This isn't something that the workers decided to do. This is something the company decided to do. Just took their livelihoods away from them and I think that's really really wrong."

While their backgrounds and the stories that brought them out here are all different, these folks are making the 200 mile trek for the same reason. Brad Nelson, just one of the 13 hundred locked out union employees explains why they're making the journey, "the idea behind this is to bring awareness to the public and to surrounding communities. Hopefully corporate management and the growers are listening. We just want everyone to know we are willing to cooperate and negotiate. We want the company to do the same thing."

As they travel through the back roads of Oslo, East Grand Forks, to Crookston and Hillsboro wrapping up in Moorhead, these supporters just hope it spreads their message. Smith says it's a fight that entails us all, "we've all got skin in this game."

American Crystal Sugar representatives said today they believe that the contract on the books is fair and reasonable. They also said they have no intentions to compromise that contract.