A federal judge on Thursday lifted a temporary restraining order against the nation’s largest dairy cooperative after it agreed to not to take steps to permanently dismantle the St. Albans creamery.
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III issued a five-day order against Dairy Farmers of America on Monday after the union representing the plant’s workers argued its closure violated their contract and appeared to be in retaliation for a two-week strike last fall.
But the judge declined to issue a longer injunction Thursday after the cooperative agreed it would take no additional steps to shutter the facility, such as moving equipment or selling the property, while the two sides head to arbitration.
The Kansas-based cooperative acquired the facility, store and associated trucking company in 2019 when it merged with the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery. It announced in June that it would close the facility August 17 and the nearly 80 workers would lose their jobs.
The Teamsters sought an emergency restraining order on Friday, August 14, and Sessions issued his ruling Monday — after the workers had been laid off.
Sessions said it seemed like a “perfect solution” to have the cooperative agree that it would not do anything “irreversible” to the facility so that if the union wins as arbitration, there is a plant for the workers to got back to.
“I feel like that was a big win for the Teamsters because they agree to do exactly what we’ve been looking for,” Curtis Clough, president of Teamsters Local No. 597, said after the hearing.
The union was prepared to present evidence at the hearing about why it believed the closure was in retaliation for last year’s strike. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) held a press conference at the shuttered plant Wednesday during which he echoed the union’s claims of retaliation and called for the cooperative to reopen the plant.
Brian Messier, a plant maintenance worker who attended the hearing, told Seven Days after it that he was ready to testify that managers at the plant repeatedly blamed the union’s tactics for the decision to close the plant.
The union also claims to have found an internal corporate memo that shows management felt idling the plant would, among other benefits, help “decertify” the union. DFA officials told the union and the judge that the document was a “fake” that was perhaps generated by artificial intelligence. In a statement, the company called the claim “ridiculous and inaccurate.”
That issue did not come up at the Thursday hearing, however. Union officials claim a janitor found the document in the plant.
“We have reason to believe that it is authentic,” Teamsters staff attorney Jason Vasquez told Seven Days.
Proving that is something the union will have to do at arbitration, though Vasquez stressed its claim of retaliation did not rest solely on the document. An arbitrator will also resolve pending questions about back pay and health insurance, the judge said.
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