As the worldwide capitalist economic depression deepens, the ruling rich in this country aggressively push to gain a competitive edge on their rivals internationally. To get a leg up in this profit drive, they are restructuring hunks of industry and agriculture at the expense of workers and farmers.
Industry is being streamlined. Tens of thousands are being thrown out of work through this downsizing. At the same time the bosses are increasing overtime, speeding up production, trying to slash wages and gut union contracts, and intensifying hazards on the job and destruction of the environment. Packinghouse workers particularly are bearing harsh blows as part of this offensive.
The drive to restructure pork production by sharply driving down hog prices to make U.S. pork more competitive on the world market is being spearheaded by the meatpacking bosses, large agribusiness enterprises, and capitalist farmers. Within the framework of the overall crisis bearing down on working farmers, which every year drives tens of thousands off the land, this stepped-up profit drive in the pork industry is putting an additional squeeze on farmers who raise and sell hogs directly to the packers and on those who sign contracts with big capitalist contractors.
Increasingly the packers won't buy hogs from working farm families at a price that will enable these producers to meet their costs and make a living. Contracting then is often the only way some farmers believe they can stay on the farm. Many young farmers especially are getting a start in raising hogs under contracts, which means going deeply in debt to the banks to build confinement facilities and surrendering the right to decisions and marketing while taking all the risks.
An onerous result of the development of large-scale hog farms is a new assault on the environment. The capitalist owners of these facilities callously pour raw sewage into lagoons that can leak into the streams and rivers and water table. The ravaging effects of these lagoons can release a horrific stench for miles around.
The collapse of a lagoon in North Carolina in June that spilled hog waste for miles and polluted the New River, killing thousands of fish, and three substantial spills in Iowa in as many months are examples of the environmental destruction posed by the rapid spread of confinement facilities.
The only defense against the bosses' profit drive is for farmers and workers to link our struggles together. Small farmers, whether working independently or under contract, and packinghouse workers in capitalist "hog factories in the field" need a program that protects us from the ravages of capitalism and unites us in action against our common oppressors.
The 1995 Iowa Socialist Workers candidates demand:
A moratorium on all farm foreclosures;
A guaranteed price for crops and livestock above the
costs of production and adequate to provide a livelihood for
working farmers and their families;
Low interest loans and other cheap forms of credit to working farmers who need them;
Free federal government provided crop and livestock insurance with 100 percent protection against natural disasters;
The establishment of price committees made up of workers and farmers to review the books of the meatpacking and agribusiness enterprises to expose their business "secrets" that result in rigged crop and livestock prices paid to farmers, high supermarket prices, low wages for agricultural and packinghouse workers, and the willful destruction of the environment;
Government-funded medical insurance and social security for working farmers;
Full union protection and union wages for workers in packinghouses and hog confinement operations. Union control over safety in these plants;
Complete enforcement of all environmental laws by the federal and state governments. Make big business and the government responsible for any damage to the environment and for cleanup of hog facilities when needed.