[[link removed]]

CRACKDOWN ON IMMIGRANT WORKERS AT A WISCONSIN CHEESE FACTORY TRIGGERS
BACKLASH, SOLIDARITY  
[[link removed]]


 

Ruth Conniff
August 29, 2025
Wisconsin Examiner
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ People confuse essential workers with workers who can be
exploited,” Bibiana Gonzalez, a child care provider noted. “They
want to toss these workers in the street just for being immigrants,”
said Voces de la Frontera organizer Pablo Rodriguez. _

, Solidarity and Diversity in Labor movement Detail of a mural inside
the Madison Labor Temple building celebrating unions and worker
rights. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

 

“This fight is all of labor’s fight,” Kevin Gundlach, president
of the South Central Federation of Labor, declared at a “solidarity
dinner” for 43 immigrant workers who recently lost their jobs
[[link removed]]
at a Monroe, Wisconsin cheese factory. “Even Wisconsinites who
don’t know about the story, should know in a cheesemaking state we
should support cheesemakers.” 

The workers, some of whom labored for more than 20 years at W&W Dairy,
were told in August they would have to submit to E-Verify screening
and confirm their legal status in order to continue their employment
after a new company, Kansas-based Dairy Farmers of America (DFA),
bought the cheese plant. They walked off the job
[[link removed]]
to protest, hoping DFA, which has a policy of subjecting new hires to
E-Verify screening, would exempt them because of their many years of
service. The company declined, but asked the workers to return to help
train their replacements, one worker said. 

The cheese plant employees I spoke with said they were still in shock,
worried about supporting their families as they face the loss of pay
and benefits at the end of the month.

Workers who pulled long shifts, kept the plant going through the
pandemic and took pride in producing high quality, Mexican-style
cheeses — queso fresco, queso blanco, quesadilla and panela — now
feel betrayed. 

Their goal is no longer to return to their old jobs. Instead, they are
focused on getting severance pay from W&W Dairy, which is still
technically their employer until Sept. 1 — Labor Day — when DFA
assumes control of the plant.

On Thursday, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the
immigrant workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, wrote to W&W
president Franz Hofmeister to ask that the dairy show appreciation for
its longtime workers by offering them a severance package. A Labor Day
picnic organized by community members to support the workers, “would
be an excellent opportunity to announce that the workers and the
company have resolved their differences and that workers are being
given some compensation,” Neumann-Ortiz wrote. “This would give
the workers a chance to thank you publicly and provide some healing
and closure.”

W&W’s success was propelled by its loyal workforce — fewer than
100 people who knew how to do multiple jobs in the plant and switched
roles to keep things running smoothly. The quality of the product
attracted a high-profile buyer. 

“The growth trajectory for the Hispanic cheese market is more than
three times that of the cheese category,” Ken Orf, president of
DFA’s Cheese, Taste and Flavors Division, told the trade publication
Cheese Reporter
[[link removed]],
in an article about the benefit to the company of its “strategic
acquisition” of W&W, which puts it in a “stronger position for
growth with this important dairy category.”

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Hispanic employees of
the plant.

Bibiana Gonzalez, a child care provider and community leader in the
Monroe area, said she liked the term “essential workers” when she
first heard it. The W&W workers felt they were essential to their
employer’s success, and put in long hours during the pandemic, when
other people were staying home to protect their health. But
“unfortunately, people confuse essential workers with workers who
can be exploited,” Gonzalez said.

“They want to toss these workers in the street just for being
immigrants,” said Voces de la Frontera organizer Pablo Rodriguez.

DFA wants to distance itself from any thorny political issues around
immigration. In a statement to WKOW
[[link removed]]
Channel 27 news, the company asserted it had a goal “to retain 100%
of the W&W workforce,” but that “as part of the hiring process to
become DFA employees, all W&W workers and other applicants were
notified of the need to provide documents to complete both an I-9 form
and the E-verify process.” Failing to produce the proper documents,
unfortunately, would mean “DFA’s ability to offer employment was
impacted.”

Using cold, passive bureaucratic language, DFA casts it as a
regrettable accident that its E-Verify policy rendered nearly half the
cheese plant’s employees ineligible to continue working there. But
as a cooperative with 5,000 dairy farm members, it’s impossible DFA
leadership is unfamiliar with its industry’s heavy reliance on
workers who don’t have papers.

In Wisconsin, where DFA has 399 member farms and four dairy
manufacturing plants, an estimated 70% of the dairy workforce is made
up of immigrants who cannot get E-Verifiable legal work papers.

In dairy, as in other year-round, nonseasonal industries, immigrants
who make up the majority of the work force are ineligible for U.S.
work visas. Congress has simply failed to create a visa for year-round
jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, food service and
other industries that rely on immigrant labor.

Far from being a drag on the economy, immigrant workers who lack legal
authorization are heavily recruited by U.S. employers and
“supercharge economic growth,” according to a new Center for
Migration Studies research brief.
[[link removed]]
The research brief shows that 8.5 million undocumented workers in the
U.S. contribute an estimated $96.7 billion annually in federal, state
and local taxes, “filling roles vital to critical industries.”

The brief also warns that mass deportations could cause critical
workforce shortages. No one knows that better than Wisconsin dairy
farmers, who would go out of business overnight if their mostly
immigrant workforce was deported.

Union members who came out to support the W&W workers Tuesday night
embraced the idea that all workers are in the same boat, are ill
served by an authoritarian, bullying Trump administration, and will do
better if they band together.

That’s the whole idea of solidarity: Working people need to unite to
protect their common interests against the rich and powerful, who will
run roughshod over all of us if they can. Expanding on that unifying
message, Al Hudson, lay leader of the Union Presbyterian Church in
Monroe, whose congregation supports the W&W workers, brought his
social justice gospel to the union hall.

“We are proud to be a gathering place for the Green County Hispanic
community,” Hudson said of his church. “We’re proud to do our
part to be a Matthew 25 church,” he added, referring to the Bible
verse in which Jesus calls on the faithful to clothe the naked, feed
the hungry, care for the sick and visit those in prison. “This is
what churches are supposed to do,” Hudson said. “I admire your
courage,” he told the displaced W&W workers, pledging to continue to
“walk with you and support you in your struggle as long as you want
us there.”

The union members in the hall cheered. They applauded the W&W workers,
they applauded speeches about solidarity among working people of every
race and ethnic background. They seemed enlivened by the chance to do
something to help.

The warm feeling of pulling together to resist the violent bigotry of
the anti-immigrant Trump administration, recognizing the common
struggle among all working people, was uplifting.

“Solidaridad!” shouted Gundlach, and the mostly gringo crowd of
unionists shouted back, “Solidaridad!

_Ruth Conniff is Editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. She
formerly served as Editor-in-chief of The Progressive Magazine where
she worked for many years from both Madison and Washington, DC. _

_About the Wisconsin Examiner: In Wisconsin’s great progressive
tradition, we aim to hold the powerful accountable to the people,
follow the money, and dig out the truth. Although we give you the
inside scoop, we are not a publication for “insiders.” Instead, we
cover the way politics and government affect citizens of the
state.  We’re part of States Newsroom
[[link removed]], the nation’s largest state-focused
nonprofit news organization._

* immigrant workers
[[link removed]]
* Temporary Work Visas
[[link removed]]
* labor solidarity
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]