The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 39

IliSiDE Classifieds 8F Commodities 2F Country Living 2F Investor's Memo 3F Stock Listings 4F SECTION Copyngnt 1987, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company January 25, 1987 Simfcay jBcgtetcr Union aims to take on IBP with nationwide campaign REGISTER MAP 7 frr nS I Luvrna 1 1 )boiT lfsxom )Xl 1 fy Dakota Clly 7 1 II West Point Gftieseo 74 A I 4. James Kirk Farm Credit's Kirk makes battle plans IBP Inc. packing plants Ml survives, but it's nothing like it once was By JAMES R. HEALEY Register Business Writer Yes, Virginia, there still is an AGRI Industries. But AGRI of West Des Moines, once Iowa's biggest grain cooperative, is "a drop in the bucket compared to what it used to be," says long-time employee Beverly Bishop.

She's been with the company since 1960, when it was called Farmers Grain Dealers Association, and she now works as administrative assistant to Gene Peters, the company's top operating officer. "It was kind of fun watching the company grow, but it's been doing the opposite lately," she says. Indeed. AGRI's revenues in the latest fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31, 1986, were $330 million, one-third of the $1 billion in fiscal 1985.

And 1985's $1 billion figure was the lowest since the $966 million recorded in fiscal 1979 the first year the grain cooperative called itself AGRI. Losses in fiscal 1986 were $5.3 million, but that, nonetheless, was the best operating record the company has mustered since 1983. AGRI is now "in a position to operate profitably," chairman Dennis Lundsgaard said at last Monday's annual meeting. "A new AGRI has been created." Pieces Sold AGRI sold pieces of itself in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Its heart grain marketing now belongs to Cargill Inc.

of Minneapolis. Cargill and AGRI last March combined parts of their operations in a joint partnership called AGRI Grain Marketing, which does what the old AGRI used to collect grain from member co-ops and ship it to marketing or export points. Cargill owns 51 percent and has five representatives on the board; AGRI owns 49 percent and has four directors, says Peters, who carries the title of vice president and controller at AGRI. "All our grain marketing goes through the partnership," Peters reports. "A lot of AGRI's fortunes are tied to the fortunes of AGRI Grain Marketing.

However the partnership goes, we'll go." As 49 percent owner, AGRI receives 49 percent of the marketing company's revenues, which are not reported separately by either of its owners. Peters says only that the marketing partnership is making money. Subleasing No longer a direct grain marketer, AGRI's business nowadays involves subleasing to other cooperatives a fleet of some 600 railroad cars it leases, and providing what it calls "agency services" principally recordkeeping for the 300 or so member cooperatives in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Texas, which represent about 130,000 farming operations. AGRI also operates a leasing company called AGRI AGRI Please turn to Page 3F REGISTER PHOTO BY BOB NANDELL Union Base Labor Type of Number of Location Affiliation Rates Plant Workers Dakota City, Nebraska UFCW Beef 2,800 Emporia, Kansas Non-Union 8.00-8.30 Beef 2,000 Amarillo, Texas Teamsters 7.56 Beef Garden City, Kansas Non-Union 7.60 Beef 1,800 Geneseo, Illinois Non-Union 6.45-6.50 Beef 1,500 Storm Lake, Iowa Non-Union 7.50 pork 1,000 Pasco, Washington Teamsters 6.26-8.76 Beef 1,000 Columbus Junction, Iowa Non-Union 5-15 Pork 400 Council Bluffs. Iowa Non-Union 5.50 pork 400 Denison, Iowa Non-Union 8.30 Pork 240 Boise, Idaho Non-Union 6.76-8.76 Beef 180 West Point, Nebraska Non-Union 8-30 Beef 180 Luverne, Minnesota Non-Union 830 Beef 150 By GENE ERB Register Business Wilier DAKOTA CITY, NEB.

IBP the country's largest meat packer, has become the target of a nationwide union-organizing campaign by the country's second-largest union, the United Food and Commercial Workers. Leaders of the 1.3-million-member union say the drive is the largest in memory aimed at a manufacturing firm, and the largest launched by a single union against one company. Ten non-union IBP plants with 8,500 to 10,000 workers are in the union's sights, including Iowa plants in Storm Lake, with 1,000 workers; Columbus Junction, with 400 building to Council Bluffs, with 400; and Denison, with 240. In addition to traditional organizing, the union plans a campaign to explain to community leaders and residents the problems IBP workers face and the ways a union could help both workers and communities. Leafleting "There's only one way to sell our message," said Lewie Anderson, vice president in charge of the UFCW's packinghouse division.

"It amounts to leafleting at all the plants, and informing people about how management is exploiting workers and making millions of dollars. "It's an issue that goes beyond the union issue. It's wages, safe working conditions, having the ability to blend in and live in a community." Anderson said union officials will contact business leaders, ministers and "liberal-minded people to show them what IBP is doing to people, and what impact it is having on communities." Members of the UFCW's packinghouse division are helping finance the campaign by paying $1 a month each in additional dues. Industry's Future UFCW officials say the members are doing it because they know organizing IBP plants is essential to the union's future in the industry. IBP is already the dominant company in beef packing, they note, and is rapidly rising in strength and size in the pork sector.

The UFCW, which represents just 2,800 of IBP's 15,000 production workers, has been trying since the late 60s to organize workers at IBP plants. Just one of 13 operating plants, however the flagship beef facility in Dakota City has been organized. Teamsters Two other plants, with a total of 2,800 workers, have been organized by the Teamsters Union, the only union larger than the UFCW. The other 10 plants are non-union. "We came to the conclusion that it's almost impossible to organize one or two plants because the company puts all of its resources into defeating us in those locations," said Anderson.

The union hopes to strain IBP's resources with its nationwide effort. Anderson said, "We think it's working, but we don't kid ourselves. We don't expect to organize all the plants this time around." Union officials say they believe they'll be ready to hold elections at four or five plants by late spring or early summer. IBP Response Company officials, meanwhile, are making every effort to block the campaign, and say they don't expect the union to be successful at any IBP plants. "The bottom line is, they don't have a selling point," said Daniel Foley, vice president of human resources.

"If you're going to sell a product, you have to have SOURCE: IBP Inc. and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Plans to increase employment to 1,000, pjjBi 1 ft dard in the beef industry and will gain more influence over pork industry wages and benefits as its operations grow in that sector. Turnover Anderson acknowledged that organizing IBP plants has not been easy, and said the biggest problem has been work force turnover. "It's just horrendous, at least 100 percent a year at all of their plants. So you're always working with a new work force," he said.

IBP officials would not disclose worker turnover figures, but said the rate is much lower than the 100 percent claimed by the UFCW. They also denied charges that the company encourages turnover to keep wages and benefits down. To say IBP wants high turnover and job insecurity for its workers is "nonsense," said Foley. "We work hard to get turnover down." UFCW organizer Jerry Zillion said about 40 workers a week are dropping out at the packer's newly opened hog plant in Columbus Junction. They're quitting or being fired, he said, because plant conditions are brutal.

Workers, who start at $5 an hour, are suffering knife wounds, am- IBP Please turn to Page 2F something appealing. The record of the UFCW is failure. They really don't have anything attractive to sell to workers." Foley said the UFCW promises to improve working conditions, wages and benefits, but "that has not happened. They've lost ground, both in membership and in wages and benefits." IBP workers in Dakota City have been on strike a total of 146 weeks since the plant was organized in 1969, and yet their wages, benefits and working conditions are no better than those at other IBP plants, said Foley. Wages The base wage for UFCW slaughter workers in Dakota City is $8.20 an hour, compared with base wages ranging from $6.50 to $8.76 at IBP's non-union plants.

The average in the beef industry is $7.58. Unions officials say, however, that they are bringing wages back to-reasonable levels after years of concessions. By 1988, they said, hourly wages at pork plants will have increased to $9.75 from $8.75 at John Morrell to $10.10 from $9 at Swift and to $10.70 from $10 at Geo. A. Hormel Co.

That kind of progress will be easier in the future if the union is successful in its IBP campaign, the union officials said, because IBP already sets the wage stan By JERRY PERKINS Register Agribusiness Writer OMAHA, NEB. James Kirk, new head of the Farm Credit Banks of Omaha, says he enjoys a challenge. That's fortunate, because Kirk will face a plethora of tough decisions at the helm of the farm lender, which lost S10 million in 1985 and $276.1 million in the first nine months of 1986. And that's why Kirk, 42, left a position as senior vice president of Wells Fargo Bank's agricultural real estate management department in Fresno to take the reins at Omaha. "Wells Fargo is a good company, and because of my experiences there, I think I have something to offer," Kirk said last week at the Farm Credit Bank building in downtown Omaha.

"This is a challenge and a management opportunity, and I wanted to learn something about a part of the country I know nothing about." Plenty of Challenges For Kirk, the challenges appear to be almost as vast as the universe. He inherits a three-pronged lending system that has suffered deep losses in recent years because of heavy farm loan losses and declining farmland values. In the first nine months of last year, one of its institutions, the Federal Land Bank, lost $233.7 million. The Federal Intermediate Credit Bank-Production Credit Association of the Midlands lost $39.5 million, and the Bank for Cooperatives lost $2.9 million. The Land Bank's losses came on top of a loss of $177 million in 1985, and it was able to keep its doors open only because of $410.7 million in assistance from the solvent banks in the Farm Credit System.

On Sept. 30, the three banks had a total of just over $5 billion in loans outstanding to farmers and ranchers in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. In Iowa, the banks had outstanding loans of $2.2 billion, made to 30,835 farmers and 250 cooperatives. More Losses Expected Kirk said he expects the Omaha Land Bank to continue to lose money in 1987, 1988 and 1989 before becoming "marginally profitable" in 1990. Cutting the Land Bank's $1 billion in loans that are not paying interest is a priority, Kirk said.

He said he hopes to cut the non-accruals by restructuring the loans that can be salvaged, but that will result in more losses for the Land Bank as it writes off the interest income. Another priority is disposing of the Land Bank's 394,000 acres, representing 856 farms, that it holds as acquired properties. "We'll try to find a way to sell those off without depressing land values," Kirk said. In addition, Kirk said he hopes to save money through continued cuts in bank employment. Offices Closed Already, the merger of the 37 Production Credit Associations into a single umbrella PCA and the reorganization of association territories into 15 Farm Credit Services Centers have resulted in the closing of a number of offices and the loss of jobs.

And, at the Omaha headquarters, employment was reduced by 23 percent, from 430 to 330, when the most recent reorganization took effect Oct. 1. The most recent cuts were announced Sept. 19, and five days later, John Harling, Kirk's predecessor as president and chief executive officer, left his job. Harling, 51, has refused to talk about his resignation.

Morale at the banks' Omaha headquarters is said to be suffering because of the cuts in jobs and also because of a wage freeze imposed during 1987. Kirk said that the 40 percent contraction of the Omaha banks' loan portfolio, from $8.5 million in 1985 to $5 billion on Sept. 30, 1986, means fewer employees are needed. "There might be a need for addi- KIRK Please turn to Page 2F 1 ta Gene Peters, at AGRI's West Des Moines headquarters. REGISTER PHOTO BY BOB NANDELL rr'T jl jlil first D.M.

Chamber chairwoman By STEPHANIE SHAW Register Business Writer Connie Wimer was a socially connected nobody 10 years ago. Now she is one of the most well known and powerful businesswomen in Iowa. She is president of the Iowa Title one of the largest abstracting firms in the state, and is owner and publisher of two weekly newspapers, the Business Record and the Des Moines Skywalker. And Wednesday evening Wimer will be handed the gavel at the annual dinner of the Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce Federation. On Jan.

1 she became the first woman to head the Chamber in its 99-year history. This is the same woman who grew up in a tiny town in northwestern Iowa, who has no college degree, no business training and who used to be so shy she would "blush to the point of tears." Timing She says of her success: "I think I was in the right place at the right time." But friends and colleagues say her success is more than just lucky timing. They say Wimer has a shrewd, al most instinctive knack for business and the guts to take risks. "She's very bright and well-organized and she's a very good businesswoman," says Iowa Realty Co. Chairman William Knapp, who Wimer describes as a mentor and close friend.

"She's aggressive and wants to succeed." Wimer is 54 but could pass for years younger. She is charming, poised and confident. She would not be caught dead dressing for success by wearing the female corporate uniform a plain dark suit with a perky bow tie. Her extensive wardrobe is full of bright colors and she confesses to having "a bit of a shoe fetish." "I love being a woman and I never felt I had to sacrifice that," she says. "If you wear something bright and cheery, it makes people feel good." But her flamboyant appearance has pragmatic business benefits as well.

"When I go in a room in a red suit and everyone else is in blue and grey, they obviously remember me and my name," Wimer says. Beneath the unabashedly feminine attire is a tough, no-nonsense entre preneur who has a keen eye for new opportunities to make money. For example, Wimer recently joined with Thomas Groth, a professor of journalism at Iowa State University, to start a company that plans to make money by selling advertising on Iowa lotto tickets under a contract with the Iowa Lottery Commission. "She's open to new ideas and is willing to take a risk," says Groth. "What makes her successful in business is that she has this vision." Wimer entered the business world at the age of 12, when she worked as a clerk in a drugstore in Merrill, Iowa.

She was the middle of three children. Her father was a mechanic who owned a garage and her mother was a housewife. Wimer studied at Morningside College for a year, then dropped out to earn money for school and never went back. Three Daughters In 1954, she married William Wimer, an attorney in Des Moines. They have three daughters ranging from 24 WIMER Pleose turn to Page 3F Connie Wimer displays a quilt that was made for her by employees..