The strike began February 28 after workers at the plant rejected 10 concession demands by the company. The proposed takebacks, which the strikers call "The Ten Commandments," would cut a total of more than 30 percent in wages and benefits, according to the union flyer distributed at the rally. Tyson’s demands include a two-tier pay-scale cutting hourly rates for new hires from $11.10 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.

Tyson Foods, the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork, reported gross income of more than $23 billion last year. The company employs 120,000 people in 300 facilities in 29 U.S. states and 22 countries. It acquired the Jefferson factory along with dozens of other meatpacking and processing plants in its late 2001 purchase of meat producer IBP, Inc. Tyson is a Fortune 500 company in business for 68 years. The onset of capitalist depression has affected the company’s profit margins, making investors nervous. Tyson’s stock fell from $15.71 per share last July to $7.20 March 18. Management is using this to justify its takeback demands.

The 470 workers at Jefferson are members of UFCW Local 538. Before the strike, they processed pork products, including pepperoni topping for pizza. Workers at this plant have been able to maintain a higher-than-average wage scale in the industry.

"There is a war against workers in the U.S.," Wisconsin AFL-CIO president David Newby told the rally. "The example of this here is Tyson."

The union has dispatched "Truth Squads," groups of strikers usually numbering a dozen, to large meatpacking plants, starting with factories in the Midwest. Mike French, a striker with 28 years at the plant, told Militant reporters that the Truth Squads have passed out informational flyers at plant gates, held meetings with the leadership of local unions, and received cash donations for the strike. "We were always well received," French said. "Sometimes there was disbelief that the concessions the Tyson bosses were demanding were so deep. But the other unionists know what happens here is coming up the road for them."

Tyson has been trying to keep the plant running by recruiting scabs in Beloit and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Last week there were 80 pickets outside the scab recruiting temporary agency, QPS, in Greenfield, Wisconsin," a striker explained. "Forty of the pickets were strikers and another 40 were unionists from Milwaukee." None of the workers employed by Tyson before the strike have crossed the picket line.

Strikers say that two buses of scabs enter the plant each day, most of them Spanish-speaking immigrants, but that little meat has been produced so far. The company has distributed flyers in Chicago in English, Spanish, and Chinese in an effort to recruit more workers from the Culinary plant owned by Tyson, which has laid off dozens of employees, to cross the picket line in Jefferson.

Miguel Olvera, a leader of a long and successful fight to get a union and a contract at Dakota Premium Foods in South St. Paul, Minnesota, spoke in Spanish at the March 29 rally. He encouraged the strikers to continue to contact other workers in the state. "This is the way you will break down the company," he said. "There are hundreds of thousands of workers, including Latino workers, in the same situation as yourselves. Stay united and don’t back down."

UFCW Local 789 president Bill Pearson led the crowd in chanting, Si, se puede! Si, se puede! (yes, we can). This is the favorite slogan in Spanish of the workers at Dakota. Pearson presented a check of $1,000 from Local 789 to the Jefferson strike fund. Rafael Espinosa, a representative of UFCW Local 789, also spoke at the rally.

The extent of support for the strike among working people in the area was evident at the rally, and a striker said that more than $11,000 was donated that day for the walkout. The union pantry received food donations earlier in the day and was stocked full.

More information on the strike can be found at www.tysonfamiliesstandup.org, the union strike headquarters’ website.

Chessie Molano contributed to this article.  
 
 
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