BY PATTIE THOMPSON  
JEFFERSON, Wisconsin--Some 200 people turned out April 26 for the rally here in solidarity with workers on strike against Tyson Foods. This was the third such action called by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 538 since its members walked out of the sausage plant on February 28.

Strikers explained that they took the action in face of the bosses’ intransigence, expressed in a series of takeback demands referred to by the workers as the company’s "ten commandments."

Workers from two other local meatpacking plants joined the rally. Other participants sported caps bearing the logos of a number of unions, including the Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Service Employees and International Union, the two teachers unions in the state, and other UFCW locals. Two carloads of postal workers in Minnesota drove to the rally on the invitation of a striker who had addressed them.

Speakers at the rally included a representative of the United Auto Workers in Janesville, Wisconsin--a local in GM assembly and parts plants that has been active in building solidarity with the strike. Two representatives of a group of meat packers from Omaha also spoke, along with officials of the Green and Democratic parties. Participants enjoyed songs by Anne Feeney, and a hot dog meal provided by the organizers.

After the rally, three members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 538 described their experiences in spreading the word about the strike against Tyson Foods in the Midwest through the union "Truth Squads."  
 
Experiences of ‘Truth Squads’
These union members walked out February 28, after nine months of contract negotiations failed to push back the food giant’s demands for numerous concessions.

"We knew we wanted to get out just after the strike started," recounted Scott Howard, who has worked in the factory kitchen for 19 years. He was one of 11 strikers who set out in three vehicles in mid-March to visit meatpacking plants in Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska.

"We’d leave out from the motel in the morning, one vehicle one way, the other toward another, so we reached a whole lot of people in those four days," Howard said. "The plants are all so big: Sioux Falls has around 2,000, Dakota City about 3,000, Sioux City over 2,000." The Jefferson plant employs 470 workers. "In some places they let us stand by the plant--at others, across the street. We hand billed to let them know that what’s happening to us could be happening to you."

The company’s takeback demands include a two-tier pay scale cutting hourly rates for new hires from $11.09 to $9, and freezing pay for others over a four-year period; eliminating pensions for new hires and freezing benefits for the rest; increasing health-care premiums by as much as $40 a week and eliminating health-care supplements for retirees; cutting sick leave and disability benefits by more than half; reducing vacations; eliminating two paid holidays for new hires; taking away the right to severance pay if the plant closes; and ending the profit-sharing program.

"The high point was at the Cherokee, Iowa, plant where only 650 people work," stated Howard. "But they put $2,200 in our donation cans. They had been on strike three or four times before and know what it means to fight."

Linda Kolodzne, a machine operator in the slicing department for 20 years, described another stop she made while on the UFCW Local 538 Truth Squad. "We showed up at a plant in Iowa that’s pretty run down, in a poor area of the town," she said. "It’s clear that conditions must be pretty bad in there. We walked right up to the front door to explain where we’re from and asked, ‘Where can we do this?’ Company security told us we had to go over to the other side of the road. Then city cops and state troopers showed up. It was a cold, windy day."

Despite company and cop obstructions, she said, workers did stop to talk and explained that "conditions there are horrible, like back to 19th–century manufacturing. Where we are, the plant is modern, well-kept. There’s no kill floor, just processing. We’re right by downtown, part of the life of the city." Kolodzne said this experience was "very humbling."  
 
‘Shocked’ at concession demands
Mike French heads up Local 538’s Action Committee, which coordinates trips like these. Of the three strikers who gave interviews to the Militant, he’s the only one who had a post in the union prior to the strike.

He is the local’s recording secretary, and a union steward in the slicing department. He has worked in the plant 28 years.

"After the big one, we sent other Truth Squads to Austin and Albert Lea, Minnesota, then another to smaller plants in Illinois and Iowa," French said. "In Austin, we spoke to a union meeting. A couple of people told us they thought what they had seen on the fliers was just a joke someone was spreading around the plant to stir them up. We explained that these are really the concessions Tyson wants from us, and then they were shocked."

The Action Committee also coordinates regular picketing at the offices of the QPS temporary employment agency. This outfit is hired by Tyson to recruit scabs in Beloit, Greenfield, and Racine, Wisconsin, and at a hotel in Watertown where Tyson is seeking to hire directly from ads in local papers. This picketing involves many more strikers than the road trips.

The Action Committee is planning trips for teams of strikers to reach out more broadly both to the West and the East. The trips include visiting Tyson customers and drawing attention to the actions of the individual members of the company’s board of directors. The goal is to put pressure on Tyson management to return to the bargaining table.

No new talks have been scheduled so far between Tyson and the UFCW, and the union has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the company of bad-faith bargaining.

Tyson--the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef and pork--reported gross income of more than $23 billion in 2002. It employs 120,000 people in 300 facilities in 29 states and 22 countries. Tyson acquired the Jefferson, Wisconsin, facility--along with dozens of other meat packing and processing plants--in the September 2001 purchase of meat giant IBP Inc. The plant here produces pepperoni for several brands of frozen pizzas and various national pizza restaurant chains, as well as hams, ring bologna, and hot dogs.

The March/April Truth Squads brought in thousands of dollars of donations to help sustain the strikers. Many unions in the region are chipping in. Local 538’s Food Committee is coordinating the many donations to the food pantry. Its Hardship Committee organizes the "Adopt-A-Family" program, through which a union local can help sustain a striker’s family for the duration of the fight. Picket lines in front of the plant are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Participants at the April 26 rally were also invited to the next solidarity event set for May 10 here.

From their efforts, Howard said he saw "lots of people’s eyes’ opened, lots of Hispanics responded. The companies have been trying to divide us, to turn some of us against the union. But as they see this, taking on a big company, more people would say, ‘maybe we can stand up, too.’"

Kolodzne now volunteers a minimum of 20 hours a week in the union hall. "Yeah, I went to union meetings before, but this is the first thing to participate in," she said, adding that she wants to encourage anyone "who doesn’t like what you’re seeing to get involved" with the unions. Kolodzne also made a point of urging those who want more information on this struggle to visit the union’s web site at: www.tysonfamilies standup.com

"They didn’t know they would find all the people linked arm-in-arm," French said, noting that the company got a surprise when it put the concession package on the table. While workers take chances by walking out, he said, "We can see the strike as an opportunity to make our unions stronger."

Pattie Thompson is a sewing machine operator and a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) in Chicago.  
 
 
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