At 5:00 a.m. on October 10, 34 members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 walked out and began picketing the plant, which has a workforce of 37. Union representative Oscar Sandoval said that after holding off negotiations for months on a contract that expired almost a year ago, the company proposed a two-year contract with raises of 50 cents and 10 cents over the first two years. Workers would receive a $100 bonus in the second year.

A few days later the bosses offered a three-year contract with raises of 25 cents in each of the first two years, 10 cents in the third, and no bonus. Several of the strikers said that this offer was the final straw. T & J Meat Packing is a cut-and-kill plant that processes mostly pigs, but also lambs and goats.

Rumaldo Acevedo, who has worked there for 15 years and is the shop steward at the plant, spoke to the Militant about the speed-up that the bosses have in carried out over that time. Ten years ago 13 butchers killed some 200 pigs in an eight-hour shift, he said. Today, the same number of butchers process 600 pigs over 11 hours.

Strikers explained that wages begin at $6.50 an hour and raises are few and far between. Juan Gutierrez, 25, said that he started at $6 an hour four years ago and now makes $7. “We’re fighting for a raise and also better treatment,” he says. “Sometimes the owner comes down to the line and yells and swears at the workers to work faster.”

One striker who did not give his name said that because the workers are Mexican the boss thinks he can treat them like slaves. He explained that he was in a three-month walkout in Mexico in 1979, and that the strikers then had won a raise and benefits. “That was a great experience where the workers came together,” he said, “just like we are here.”

The workers are picketing 24 hours a day. Near their picket line, at the entrance to the plant, is a store selling meat to the public. In a couple of hours on the picket line this reporter saw only a small handful of people drive by the meat packers to shop. Two women who drove up stopped to hear what they had to say. One asked where else she could buy meat in quantities. When the striker told her the closest place was near downtown Chicago, she said that she wouldn’t go that far, but added, “I’m not going in here either. Good luck to you guys,” and drove off.

Oscar Sandoval explained that truck drivers in the Teamsters had refused to cross their line. One driver from a grocery store at first allowed his vehicle to be driven in by management personnel from T & J Meat Packing, ready for loading. After the strikers explained their fight to him, he called his boss, who agreed that he would bring the truck back empty.

Sandoval and several strikers reported that before the strike, the owner, John Lilovich, tried to split the workers from their union. A few days into the strike he walked out to the picket line and pointed to several workers and demanded they come with him. When Sandoval said these workers were union members on strike Lilovich protested that they were his employees. None of the workers moved and Lilovich walked back to the plant.

Ernest Mailhot is a meat packer and member of United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 1546 in Chicago.  
 
 
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