BY FRED HALSTEAD
On Aug. 17, 1985, the 1,500 union meatpackers at Geo. A.
Hormel & Co. in Austin, Minnesota, went on strike for a new
contract. The battle by members of United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) Local P-9 marked a break in the rout of the
labor movement in the United States of the early 1980s, as one
union after another had accepted the employers' concession
demands without a fight. The Hormel strikers won broad support
from working people across the country. The P-9 workers not
only faced company strikebreakers and the Minnesota National
Guard, but also attacks from the UFCW international
officialdom, which eventually put the local under trusteeship
and declared the strike over in March 1986. The story of this
strike, which served as inspiration to a wave of resistance to
the bosses' offensive among meatpackers in the Midwest, is told
in the pamphlet The 1985-86 Hormel Meat-Packers Strike in
Austin, Minnesota, by Fred Halstead. Below are excerpts from
that pamphlet, which is copyright (c) 1986 by Pathfinder Press.
Reprinted by permission.
In the last full year before the strike, the Hormel plant in Austin had one of the highest injury rates in the U.S. meat- packing industry. In that year, there were 202 injuries for every 100 workers in the plant. The national average for all industries was 10 per 100. The meat-packing industry average was 33 per 100. In 1984, fully one-third of the workers in the Austin plant suffered injuries serious enough to cause lost time on the job.
In October 1984, Local P-9 members were hit with a 23 percent wage cut, from $10.69 an hour to $8.25. This cost the average worker almost $100 from the weekly paycheck.
Six months later, an arbitrator's ruling put the wage at $8.75, but allowed the company to cut benefits deeply, including the coverage under the company-carried health insurance plan. These cuts were made retroactive to September 3, 1984.
Workers who, in the meantime, had used the health plan for themselves or members of their families were suddenly in debt to the company for their retroactively not-covered medical and dental bills. In some cases this amounted to thousands of dollars, in others many hundreds. The company deducted this, chunk by chunk, from the already mangled weekly paychecks....
In early August 1985, the company made its final contract offer. It was so bad even the UFCW officials recommended rejection and promised the International's full support if P-9 turned down the contract. It did. The Local then requested that the International sanction a strike, and this was granted by telegram August 9. But the same telegram attacked P-9 and placed restrictions on the right to strike....
As soon as the strike started, the Local and its supporters set in motion a number of democratic committees and procedures to involve all the P-9 members. The United Support Group, which had been formed earlier by spouses of P-9 members, stepped up its activities.
No member who wanted to participate, both in activity and decision making, was left out. This has greatly strengthened the struggle and kept the members well informed. The International Union and UFCW Region 13 provided a total of $65 per week strike benefit, soon cut to $40. But the strikers were able to survive through their own efforts and solidarity from supporters.
A kitchen was set up to feed pickets as well as volunteers around the hall. A food shelf and clothing closet, stocked by donations, provided necessities to strikers and their families. Every once in a while a truck pulled into the parking lot of the Austin Labor Center, from a farm group, another packinghouse union local, or other supporter, to unload bags of potatoes, canned goods, and other food. Throughout the struggle, no strikers or their family members have had to go hungry, though the fare has been light on meat and other expensive items.
P-9 established the Tool Box, a support program to help with emergencies and the stress of the struggle; a War Room, to coordinate the various activities of the Local, including picketing; a Communications Committee, which organizes P-9 members to travel across the country, telling the truth about their fight to unions and other organizations and appealing for aid....
According to [Local P-9 president Jim] Guyette, "In the fall of 1985 the rank and file of Local P-9 voted to extend their picket lines to places performing struck work and to support any local union members honoring our roving picket lines." The members of Ottumwa Local 431, Fremont Local 22, and Dubuque, Iowa, Local 150A pledged to honor P-9's lines. They each also asked the International Union to sanction P-9's extended pickets, as well as a national boycott of Hormel products....
UFCW President [William] Wynn then agreed to issue a joint statement with Guyette saying the International would sanction extension of the picket lines if Hormel did not bargain in good faith.
On November 15, however, Wynn told the press, the company, and P-9 that: "No sanction has been granted to extend picket lines... and that we will evaluate reports from our representatives as to the good faith evinced by both the company and the Local.... Unless and until we sanction an extension our members outside Austin would be taking serious risks and the local unions could be faced with costly and risky litigation if they respected extended picketing...."
In late December a federal mediator presented a proposed contract that the company accepted. It was essentially the same as the company offer that had precipitated the strike. It left safety entirely up to the judgment of the company, gutted the seniority system, and prohibited handbilling and other constitutionally guaranteed union and political activity by employees. It contained a similar wage to that forced on the rest of the chain. (In January 1986, the annual cash compensation for Hormel Chairman Richard L. Knowlton was increased by $231,000 to $570,000.)...
The UFCW officialdom recommended -or rather insisted - that P-9 accept the mediator's proposal, and that a mail-in ballot be conducted by the International. Instead, Local P-9 held an open meeting on December 21 to discuss the contract and prepare for a vote the following week. In a secret ballot, the membership rejected the mediator's proposal by better than two to one. The International officials challenged the vote, demanding the mail-in ballot. This was held and the contract was again rejected.
On January 13, 1986, Hormel opened the plant to scabs, though not many got past the pickets and mass demonstrations by P-9 supporters.
While local police and deputies under the command of Mower County Sheriff Wayne Goodnature tried to break up the picket lines, UFCW President Wynn sent a message to P-9 President Guyette. Wynn refused to sanction roving pickets or the Hormel boycott, declaring: "Boycotting Hormel products produced under the chain agreement, which has some of the best wages and conditions in the industry, would undermine union jobs paying base labor rates of $10 an hour simply to try to secure the $10.69 an hour in Austin that you have unsuccessfully fought for for 13 months." He insisted Guyette "lead them back to work...."
Thus Wynn helped set the stage for Hormel's next move: getting Democratic-Farmer-Labor Governor Rudy Perpich to send in the Minnesota National Guard.
On January 20, 1986, the Guardsmen arrived in Austin, and by January 23 they were escorting the scabs - mostly nonunion labor - through the picket line.
On January 26, P-9 called for a national boycott of Hormel products. The next day, the Local sent its roving pickets to other plants in the Hormel chain, including Ottumwa and Fremont.
At Ottumwa the great majority of the 750 workers refused to cross the picket lines.