BY JON HILLSON
AUSTIN, Minnesota - The 10th anniversary reunion of the
1985 Hormel meatpackers strike here August 19 provided the
backdrop for discussing current contract fights with workers
from two of the plants that were struck a decade ago.
Dale Chidester worked in Hormel's Ottumwa, Iowa, plant during the 1985-86 strike. Today he works at the company's flagship Austin plant and is secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 9. The local's contract with the company expires September 9.
Contracts also expire the same day at Hormel's Fremont, Nebraska, and Atlanta, Georgia, plants. "There is no chain; we just have common expiration dates. These are individual local contracts, negotiated together. It's not chain bargaining like in the old days," Chidester said.
Hopes on the floor are for "keeping even," Chidester emphasized. "Hormel made record profits again, over $100 million last year. People are talking about a cost-of-living type deal. We just don't want to end up taking home less in these economic times. We'd like a fair share of the profit."
Hormel changed the name of its pork slaughtering operation here in 1988 to Quality Pork Processors, claiming the new plant was a separate company. At the Austin Hormel plant there are 1,000 workers today. Some 700 work at the adjoining Quality Pork facility, explained Chidester. "There is really a two-tier system here with Quality Pork," he said. They have a different contract with a different expiration date than at the Hormel plant. Pay at Quality Pork, where most of the kill and knife work is done, begins at $7.20 an hour and tops out at $9.50. Many of the workers are from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia.
The company scheduled work at both plants during the anniversary celebration. "The word was out in the plant," Chidester said, "that you could lose your job if you came to the reunion.
"I think this [reunion] is important," he told the crowd of 300. "It's about our history. If you don't remember your past, you're condemned to repeat it.
"I'm not here as Local 9 secretary-treasurer," he said, "I'm not representing anyone but myself. But as a member of the working class, I think I have the right to speak here."
Ottumwa plant
Hormel closed down its Ottumwa plant shortly after the
strike. It was sold to Cargill's Excel packinghouse division
and reopened in 1987. Glenn Matters worked in the plant
before and after it was sold. Members of UFCW Local 230
recently approved a new four-year contract there by a three-
to-one margin.
"We gained nothing," Matters said. "There's a 15-cent an hour raise. We get that in 1998."
"The company got the Beardstown, Iowa, local to settle for less and then came to us" with the same offer, said Matters. "At least we said `no' to that. But we were played against each other, the same old story."
In the negotiations the company also pushed to hold down its compensation costs by dangling bonuses in front of the workers. "The new contract states that if we keep workers' compensation costs under $2 million, we get a share of what's saved. If costs go over $2 million, we get a check for $100," Matters said with disgust.
Jon Hillson is a member of the United Auto Workers in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dick McBride, a member of UFCW Local 1149 in Perry, Iowa, contributed to this article.