While United Food & Commercial Workers Local 789 continues to inch toward formal contract negotiations with Dakota Premium Foods, the company has agreed to hire an outside investigator to gather workers' accusations about problems with supervisors, failures to enforce company policies, and possible violations of federal laws inside the South Saint Paul meatpacking plant, the union says.

The investigator will meet privately with workers in the presence of the Rev. Tom Miller, a bilingual priest from Our Lady of Guadalupe parish on the West Side, said Bill Pearson, president of Local 789. The company has agreed that workers will face no repercussions for information they reveal, Pearson said.

The meetings are scheduled to begin the week of June 10, said Bernie Hesse, an organizer for Local 789.

'We won't be there, but we have confidence in the priest who will be in the room,' Pearson said. 'Until we can get into the plant, it's important that there's a way to address the concerns of the workers.'

Pearson said the union was distributing fliers to workers informing them about the investigation and meetings. 'We need people to step forward,' he said.

Local 789 has limited access to workers because Dakota Premium has yet to officially recognize the union's election victory in July 2000.

Meanwhile, Pearson said, both sides continue to lay groundwork for the beginning of negotiations on the workers' first contract. 'The company is putting together some boilerplate language we can look at. We'll eyeball the differences,' he said.

This article was written for the June 6, 2002, issue of The Union Advocate newspaper. Used by permission. The Union Advocate is the official publication of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly. E-mail The Advocate at: advocate@mtn.org