BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — An American Crystal Sugar Co. executive says the company’s replacement workers are doing well in handling this fall’s sugar beet harvest.

The company locked out its regular workers almost 14 months ago in a union contract dispute.

On Tuesday, attorneys for the company and the locked-out employees argued in the North Dakota Supreme Court about whether the workers should get unemployment benefits.

Gayln Olson is a union official at American Crystal’s Hillsboro plant.

Olson says the locked-out workers should get unemployment because they were willing to work and the company wouldn’t let them.

Crystal vice president for administration Brian Ingulsrud says the company is concentrating now on the sugar beet harvest.

Ingulsrud says the replacement workers are doing a “fabulous job.”

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