Some think we need a different union. Others say the problem lies with the workers who voted to end the strike. Others believe the strike helped us get into a better position to fight when the new contract expires in three years.

The bosses didn’t expect a strike nor did they want one. They thought we would accept their first offer. They were even more surprised when their “final offer” was rejected, albeit by a small majority, midway through the strike.

In the previous two weeks they had sent letters to the strikers claiming they had no more money to improve the offer, implying the plant would close if the walkout continued.

They said they wouldn’t be competitive if they gave any more and could go out of business.

A number of strikers reported receiving intimidating and threatening phone calls suggesting they vote the “right way” on the company’s second offer. Foremen and supervisors phoned a selected list of strikers to encourage them to participate in the third and final vote.

The owners took machinery out of the plant to make it look like they had made the decision to close it down. They never had any intention of carrying out this threat, regardless of the outcome of the November 28 vote on the company’s third offer, according to QMP representative Karen Sample, as reported in the Nov. 27, 2004, Toronto Globe and Mail.

Our fight was a good example of what communists call the “sea change in working-class politics,” a change that began in the late 1990s.

QMP workers suffered an important defeat six years ago, when the bosses drove back wages and benefits by 40 percent. This did not occur at QMP alone. Bosses in the meatpacking industry throughout Canada and the United States had forced similar concessions. On top of that, workers at Maple Leaf Pork (MLP), the biggest hog slaughterhouse in Ontario, had several months earlier accepted a similar contract without a fight. Neither the 1999 defeat nor the MLP vote, however, weighed on us when we decided to vote against the first company offer and go on strike.  
 
Bosses’ strategy was to divide strikers
Soon after the rejection of their “final offer”—the second vote, where 52 percent of workers voted to remain on strike—the bosses took advantage of the differences among the membership over whether to continue the walkout. They encouraged some to circulate a petition addressed to the UFCW demanding the union settle and end the strike

Then, to deepen the divisions the company employed red-baiting—a tactic well-used by the employing class in many strikes and labor battles in the past and which will be used again in the future. The bosses organized to have strikers circulate articles from the Militant, written by myself and another striker, reporting on the walkout at QMP and other labor battles. The red-baiting campaign, which included the circulation of a leaflet titled “Who Wants to Fool Us and What are Their Intentions?”, centered on the charge that “communists” wanted to shut the plant down and were responsible for the strike.

A significant number of workers accepted these lies as the truth, but most rejected them and were insulted by this campaign. “Two people can’t brainwash hundreds of people,” a number of workers said. “The company caused the strike because of the pay and working conditions.”

Even though they were a minority, the workers supporting the red-baiting attack by the company were very vocal and had the backing of the bosses behind the scenes. A few even attempted a physical confrontation on the picket line. This would have served the company’s interests because the security guards and cops would have been brought in to victimize strikers. This didn’t happen because of the firmness and discipline of many of the strikers in face of the company’s campaign of intimidation.

The company’s strategy was to create and deepen divisions in the union membership. The QMP bosses were determined to beat back the unexpected challenge they faced. They were hurting because the strike had economic weight. It took place in the busy pre-Christmas weeks. In addition, the 28,000 hogs a week usually slaughtered by QMP were beyond the capacity at the other two major hog slaughterhouses in the province. The live hogs had to be shipped to the United States and other provinces in Canada at great expense to hog farmers.
 
‘Business unionism’ failed the test
In contrast to the company, our union didn’t have a fighting strategy. The strike was governed by the routine methods of “business unionism.” We received weekly strike pay for picketing a minimum of 20 hours every week over five days and were told to leave the rest to the negotiating committee, provincial union staff, and the government mediator. Union power potentially unleashed on November 1 remained hamstrung during the entire four weeks of the strike.

For example, at no time in preparation for the strike, or during the walkout, did we discuss or vote on a clear set of demands that we could rally around. This prompted comments on the picket line like, “I would stay out longer if I knew what I was fighting for.” Almost all major aspects of the negotiations remained secret.

The strike remained isolated and almost invisible, including to other UFCW members. No effort was made to draw other members of the union into active support for the strike, in particular the more than 1,000 members at the UFCW-organized MLP slaughterhouse a half-hour drive away, which was receiving hogs destined for QMP. There were other workers on strike in the Toronto area and beyond at the same time. Solidarity could have been built among these fellow fighters. This was not organized. An opportunity was not seriously taken advantage of to bring the strike to a November 27 province-wide rally in Toronto of 5,000 workers organized by the Ontario Federation of Labor.

The economic impact of the strike on the province-wide hog industry opened the door to reaching out to hog farmers for solidarity. Packing companies like QMP and MLP also exploit many of these farmers because the prices they pay for their hogs don’t adequately cover the farmers’ production costs. No initiatives were taken in this direction.

None of the “update” leaflets distributed by the UFCW officials during the strike countered the company campaign of intimidation and misinformation. Worse, material printed on our union letterhead repeated the bosses’ claim that the company had no more money, as well as the inference that the owners might close the plant if the strike continued. These “updates” acted as a transmission belt for pressure from the company on the strikers.

A fighting strategy relying on the use of union power and the economic weight of the strike to cut off the bosses’ profits, while reaching out for solidarity from other workers, is what we needed to win a better contract and strengthen the union.  
 
Rely on strength of class, solidarity
In today’s world, with a worldwide depression of the capitalist profit system underway, the employers’ brutal productivity drive to boost their sagging profit rates will continue, competition among capitalists will intensify further, and workers and our unions will be targeted. Under these conditions, routine business union methods are more and more ineffective. Relying on the organized strength of our class and on solidarity—all for one and one for all—is the only way we can defend ourselves against the bosses and strengthen our unions, or organize them if we don’t have a union.

A good example of this course is the 16-month-long struggle of U.S. coal miners at the Co-Op mine in Huntington, Utah, who are fighting to become members of the United Mine Workers of America in order to win a living wage and safety on the job.

There are lessons in the fighting strategy of these coal miners, who have won support from other unionists across the United States and internationally, that need to be discussed by the workers at QMP and other meatpacking plants who have gone through struggles like our recent strike. We should extend our solidarity to them by supporting their demand that the U.S. National Labor Relations Board recognize the UMWA as their union.

John Steele is a member of UFCW Local 175 and was one of the workers on strike against Quality Meat Packers.  
 
 
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