STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) -- Workers at the world's largest walnut processing plant voted Tuesday night to end their more than 13-year-long strike.þþThe members of the Teamsters Local 601 ratified the new five-year contract 180-61, clearing the way for striking workers to return to work Monday at Diamond of California.þþ``Nobody ever thought it would take this long,'' said Lucio Reyes, the union's secretary-treasurer. ``The company didn't expect it. We didn't expect it. I think it was worth it in that we did accomplish something. Both parties now realize we have to work together. Everyone should be feeling good about this.''þþA company spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call for comment.þþMost of the 600 strikers who walked out Sept. 4, 1991, have since found jobs elsewhere and aren't expected to return, Reyes said. The workers will have 10 days to respond to letters inquiring if they want to return to their old jobs.þþWorkers took a 30 percent pay cut in 1985 during tough times, and say they expected to be repaid as the cooperative's finances improved. The union's leadership ordered the walkout when Diamond offered a dime-an-hour raise and a bonus package in 1991.þþBut the cooperative already had begun training replacements, and automated machinery had made many of the laborers' jobs unnecessary over the years.þþThe cooperative prospered despite the strike, and has said the employees would have been better off taking the bonuses it offered.þþTeamsters International President James P. Hoffa called the strike one of the union's ``epic battles'' during a rally at the plant in 2000: ``Someday they will look back here, at the land of John Steinbeck and 'The Grapes of Wrath,' and say ... 'The workers at Stockton's Diamond plant, they are the ones who stood up,''' Hoffa told the workers.þþ
Source: NY Times
