Workers at the large Farmer John plant in nearby Vernon are on a campaign to revitalize their union and are fighting to win a new contract. Their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, is the same one that organizes the grocery workers in the Los Angeles area.

Many workers at Farmer John have been following the grocery strike and lockout with intense interest. At the picket line, the discussion became a back-and-forth on the conditions facing both groups of workers.

“They are trying to make us pay a big copayment for our health insurance, too,” said a worker from Farmer John, “and they want to pay the people who’ve worked there over five years just 25 cents more an hour in the new contract.”

The grocery workers expressed amazement at the pace of work at the packinghouse when they heard that 6,500 hogs were slaughtered in an eight-hour shift. “I heard they pay well, though,” one Albertson’s worker said. A Farmer John veteran with 32 years explained that they used to make $11 an hour but now workers are paid as little as $7.00 to $7.50 an hour for butcher jobs. In the mid-1980s a strike was defeated and the company took away the closed-shop contract provision, which had forced the company to use only UFCW members.

The unionists from Farmer John went away commenting on the unity of the strike and the way the grocery workers succeeded in convincing a good number of potential shoppers to leave by patiently explaining what the strike is about. The next morning at work, many others asked about what had happened at the picket line and expressed interest in being part of the next delegation. Other workers reported that they have joined picket lines at their neighborhood grocery.

Wendy Lyons is a kill floor worker at Farmer John and a member of UFCW Local 770.
 
 
Related article:
Grocery workers strike in California  
 
 
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