GREELEY, Colo. — As the 3,800 workers at the JBS packinghouse here end their third week on strike, the company is stonewalling their just demands.
Workers maintain strong picket lines, with well over 1,000 pickets outside the plant on each of the two shifts. The overwhelming majority of the workers are immigrants, with 57 languages spoken on the picket line. There is chanting, boom boxes with music in many different languages, and dancing. Almost all the members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 are on strike for the first time.
At the heart of the strike is the workers’ desire to fight decades of abuse by Brazil-based JBS, the largest beef and pork producing company in the world. In order to maintain superexploitation of workers’ labor, the company foments divisions between employees based on nationality and language. Company collusion in recruiting immigrant workers from Africa and Haiti with false promises and inadequate housing has been challenged in court by the workers.
Union demands include a wage raise to keep up with inflation and for the company to stop moves to garnish workers’ wages to pay for very expensive protective gear when it gets worn out or needs to be replaced. The protective metal mesh aprons they’re required to wear can cost $1,000 or more.
Dangerous working conditions are a threat to workers’ lives and limbs. While picketing on March 25 Maria Reyes told the Militant that after working 37 years at JBS one of her hands is crippled because of the repetitive motions. “I am on light duty now,” she said, “but I’m here for my co-workers. The line is moving faster than in the past.”
“A lot of people here have deformed fingers,” Solange, who has worked almost seven years in the plant, added. “They’ve had operations but then afterward they have to go back to their same job.”
Jose Hernandez told the Militant, “They care more about the cattle than they do the workers.” He described cramped quarters during the COVID epidemic that led the disease to spread through the plant. Six JBS workers died of COVID.
Workers report that when the line is speeded up, the work is completed in under eight hours. Then they are sent home, cutting their pay.
We asked picket Viviana Loya what was the most important issue for her in the strike. Her answer: “We want to be treated as human beings.”
Fight brewing for a long time
“This fight has been a long time coming,” Local 7 President Kim Cordova told the Militant. “It runs deep.” Cordova was part of the fight to unionize workers at the plant in the early 1990s and was a union representative in the plant in 2006 when government immigration raids descended there.
Last December a number of Haitian workers filed a federal lawsuit against JBS for discriminatory and abusive treatment.
Uber driver Luce, a former JBS employee originally from Haiti, said the second-shift crews that Haitian workers were placed on faced faster line speeds than first shift — 370 or more cows an hour as opposed to 300. He joined the picket line in solidarity with friends on strike, saying, “I have to support my compatriots.”
Rosalio Villarreal, with 15 years in the plant, emphasized the importance of workers coming together in the strike. “A union is about unity,” he said. “I’m out here for all the workers.”
JBS charges Local 7 with making unreasonable demands and is paying Google to run a long JBS statement that comes up first when anyone Googles “JBS strike in Greeley” or anything like it. JBS argues Local 7 should settle for the terms in the national contract signed by the UFCW International in 2025 covering other JBS packinghouses.
Cordova points out that most communities where workers agreed to the national contract have a significantly lower cost of living than Greeley, which is home to the University of Northern Colorado and an hour’s drive from Denver.
The UFCW International Union is backing Local 7’s strike against JBS, and its officers have joined workers on the picket line.
As for the bosses, the March 29 business section of the Greeley Tribune carried a banner headline, “JBS posts $2B in 2025 net income.” Yet JBS is offering workers less than a 2% annual wage increase, half the inflation rate today, which is rising.
Eben, a worker originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has worked at the plant 13 years. He says, “When I began, I could pay my rent with one paycheck. Now for new hires it takes three. People with families have to do another job, Uber or something.”
Solidarity has begun to build. UFCW Local 401 in Alberta province in Canada came out in support of the Colorado fight on March 20. Local President Thomas Hesse said, “UFCW Local 401 stands shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in Greeley, and we know when workers unite across borders, we are strongest together.
“This strike is also a particularly important moment for the food processing sector, as we approach upcoming bargaining cycles with Sofina, Olymel, Cargill, and JBS here in Alberta,” the union statement says. “UFCW 401 members may face potential labour disputes, and the lessons and solidarity demonstrated in Colorado strengthen our strategy, resolve, and unity.
“This strike is not a small or routine action.”
Support the strike!
Members of UFCW Local 431 from the JBS plant in Beardstown, Illinois, have visited the picket line.
Workers from two JBS plants in Minnesota, members of UFCW Local 663, filmed solidarity clips in English and Spanish now posted to the strikers’ social media pages. Support has come from the national officers of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union in the U.K. “When migrant workers are targeted, all workers are under attack,” they wrote in a letter. “From food workers across the UK, we recognise your courage.” The Brazilian labor federation CSP-Conlutas sent a solidarity video in Portuguese.
Workers and representatives from other unions in the area, including the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, Transport Workers Union, Iron Workers and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have joined the line.
Mike Callicrate, an independent rancher and beef producer, addressed the picket line the first week of the strike. “Today, you all have a union,” he said. “Stand strong.
“What do cattle producers and union workers, workers in general in the meat industry have in common? We’re against abusive corporate power.”
Since 1995 “we’ve lost over half of our ranchers by the same abusive power that’s being applied to workers, being applied in the supply chain to the very people who produce the cattle that you have to have in order to have a job,” he said.
The monopolistic grip the “Big Four” beef meatpackers — JBS, Tyson, Cargill and National Beef — exerts over the market means profits for them while the smaller ranchers can’t make a living.
“Since mid-March, and despite JBS’s efforts to deceive workers and the media as to the plant’s status, the plant has been almost entirely idled with only a miniscule fraction of normal production occurring,” the union reports.
Spread the word! More solidarity is needed for this fight. To contribute to the JBS strikers’ fund, go to https://my.cheddarup.com/c/solidarity-fund-for-striking-jbs-workers/items. Solidarity messages can be sent to UFCW Local 7 at 1006 9th Ave., Greeley, CO 80631 or to union@ufcw7.com.
Come out and join the picket line!