The corporate campaign failed because it was based on flawed assumptions. The plan had been to block the roads leading to the plant with circles of cars. Rogers is not a wealthy man but he is a businessman and his business is providing local unions with an alternative to going on strike. The strike, beginning August 17, 1985 and lasting until September 13 of the following year, is considered one of the longest strikes in Minnesota history and ended in failure for the striking workers. They put him in touch with Ray Rogers and Corporate Campaign, Inc. Ray Rogers is a man with a mission and that mission is to reshape the labor movement, for a price. What P-9 members got was a $3 per week assessment to pay for a $40,000 deal with Corporate Campaign, Inc. Rogers and his staff of ten make $425 a week with year-end bonuses of $1,000 (if business is good). <>3]/P 6 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> Support in the community is fairly strong. On April 14th and 15th the UFCW International held hearings on its proposal to place local P-9 in trusteeship. Prince 12.5 (www.princexml.com) <>25]/P 24 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> This committee then initiated the Naional Rank and File Against Concessions (NRFAC) to give P-9 leaders a national platform. It was not going to be easy selling this deal. 1 0 obj Even boring speeches were interrupted by standing ovations again and again. William Wynn — the president of the UFCW International — publically denounced Guyette, accusing him of leading P-9 on a suicide mission and appealed to the local membership to repudiate the strike and go back to work. The UFCW replied by calling him the Ayatollah of Austin. In 1982 the UFCW’s Lewie Anderson negotiated a new national contract for the Hormel plants. After the attempt to close the plant on April 11th, Rogers was indicted under the Minnesota Criminal Syndicalism law, the first time that statute has been invoked in decades. Yet there have been a number of militant, if isolated, struggles by workers who have put up a strong resistance. Instead there were hundreds of union men and women blocking the gates and the scabs did not pass that day or the next. Workers from all industries were there, carrying signs, union banners and the American flag. ��������������)]/Filter/FlateDecode/Height 263/Length 50203/Subtype/Image/Type/XObject/Width 844>>stream
Workers’ first concern may be their on-the-job situation but the International union heads do not share those conditions and their first concern is the survival of the union as a bureaucratic institution. This last step was the most significant in that it would prevent Hormel from shortages of product should the Austin plnat be shut down. Ironically, the Austin local had broken earlier — under the previous local leadership — with the rest of the Hormel plants to negotiate separately. After a year-long corporate campaign and ten months on strike, it wasn’t supposed to end this way. The rate was so fast that they could only sharpen their knives on the upswing, before plunging downward into another ham. Everyone wants to believe it. Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), made up of workers at Hormel’s main plant at Austin, Minnesota, has attempted to break out of isolation in several ways: a “Corporate Campaign” that tried to bring consumer pressure against Hormel’s main bank, a consumer boycott of Hormel meat products, and by roving pickets sent to other Hormel plants. But Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Governor Perpich hadd removed the National Guard in February only after hundreds of supporters from other unions had been mobilized to support the strikers in Austin. In the late 1990s, Trowe and several other SWP members worked at the Hormel slaughterhouse in Austin, 100 miles south of here. (“The Safety Issue in the Hormel Strike,” Pete Rachleff, Labor Notes #88.). But in the fall of ’83, Hormel decided to take advantage of the concessions fever then sweeping the industry and announced that it was lowering wages in pursuit of the UFCW’s “national standard” which had already become a pathetic joke. They made a deal with William Wynn, who pledged to approve the roving pickets if negotiations with Hormel failed. Research into Hormel’s stock ties and board of directors had turned up First Bank. 3 0 obj Members of Local P ⦠The International failed to provide documents and witnesses by local P-9, which denounced the proceedings as a “sham” and a “farce.”. The strikers quickly ran throughout the plant to chase out non-union workers. His travels took him to Austin and he decided to settle there, borrow $500, and open a meat business. The UFCW mailing included a form letter, addressed to Hormel’s personnel manager, which states that the applicant is willing to take any job unconditionally. They have often had to fight against the union hierarchy as well as the employer. The final company offer waas for $10 per hour for the current workforce. The local union president, Mel Maas, stood at the plant gates, along with representatives from the UFCW International, telling workers this was not a sanctioned picket and that they should go to work. ����k�-t��o�x^m�*&��$��D�b��.�Lz�����K�}8u1p�X��/��{�d�6ּ����ct"/��N&b�F��� 4VP�M���R�M�dh�,�:���P�܀���|�tX��� The IUAW went on to become a major center for organizing meatpacking plants in the upper midwest in the ’30s. At that time they had gotten a better deal than everybody else. Though material had been published on the safety problems in Hormel’s new plant, Corporate Campaign’s overwhelming emphasis had been on the money issue — a profitable company cutting wages. The shut down came on August 7th and stretched through the fall and into winter. 2011. âCensus of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, 2008. Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL) is a food company based in southeastern Minnesota (Mower County), perhaps best known as the producer of Spam luncheon meat. A sit-down strike was how local P-9 was organized originally back in 1933. Slaughterhouse Fight: A Look at the Hormel Strike By Steve Boyce, Jake Edwards and Tom Wetzel - published in Ideas & Action #7 , Summer, 1986 When the airline unions and the AFL-CIO let the air controllers go down to defeat, the message to the employing class was, "You can do what you want; we won't organize a fighting solidarity." The magazine is currently suspended. Enormous quantities of literature were produced — from leaflets to newspapers — and sent throughout Minnesota and beyond. Though the negotiations did eventually raise the wage offer to $10 per hour, the company’s “final offer” in January still contained a lot of givebacks that would essentially give management the right to do anything it wanted in the plant, and wipe out all the past practices and procedures (e.g. As long as the company still recognized the UFCW and kept wages in the $8 per hour range, nobody at the International really cared. Region 13 director Joe Hansen made it clear in his announcement that this was the best deal P-9 woudl get and that the UFCW would conduct a mail ballot. The differential in pay between what P-9 wanted and what Hormel offered had been steadily narrowed by arbitrators’ rulings before the strike and mediators proposals after the strike began. He came to Austin and sold Guyette — and then the membership — on a campaign to restore to P-9 what Hormel and the UFCW had taken away. In the case of the J.P. Stevens campaign, Rogers’ campaign dwelled upon the fact that Stevens had more violations of labor laws than anyone else. And obviously Rogers’ strategy did not avoid arrests or police violence. Hormel sells food under ⦠Yet direct action by workers to defend their picket lines against the job-stealing of the scabs is perfectly legitimate, no matter what capitalist legality may say about it. Some of the new technology had inadequate safety features — like automatic back saws with no safety guards. âParty members from Twin Cities would regularly come down to sell the Militant outside the plant at shift change, helping us get to know workers beyond the departments we worked in,â Trowe said. Hormel attempted to re-open the plant in January. endobj 48 0 obj Hard-Pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement. <>/Metadata 2 0 R/Outlines 5 0 R/Pages 3 0 R/StructTreeRoot 6 0 R/Type/Catalog/ViewerPreferences<>>> On the company side, active preparations were underway for a strike. Supporters of the new independent estimate that there are between 12,000 and 30,000 meatpackers in 30 locals across the midwest who may be willing to leave the UFCW for an independent union. On June 9th petitions were filed with the National Labor Relations Board, signed by 800 P-9 strikers, to decertify the UFCW International in favor of an independent union. P-9 listened, and believed, and did not strike. The line producing Hormel’s most popular new product — hot dogs stuffed with chile — was dismantled and moved to Houston. <>21]/P 23 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> endobj What the UFCW International and AFL-CIO tops dislike in this case is not the corporate campaign in itself, but the fact that a gutsy local union is charting its own course independent of the International. Hormel is an American meat processing company ⦠The assumption is that workers should appeal to “public opinion” rather than to solidarity from other workers. 44 0 obj The NPR reporter commented that he sounded very much like a company spokesman. Within the local a core of dissenters publicly attacked Rogers and Guyette and from UFCW Region 13 headquarters came veiled threats of putting P-9 into receivership. On May 9th, the Executive Board of the UFCW International ordered a trusteeship for local P-9, with the Region 13 director Joe Hansen appointed as the International’s dictator in Austin. 72 0 obj 38 0 obj endobj Meanwhile, the Twin Cities dailies describe P-9 as “rigid” and “inflexible.”. <> <> The 1985â86 Hormel strike was a labor strike that involved approximately 1,500 workers of the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota in the United States. She was an academic who was the daughter of one of the millwrights at the Wilson & Company plant in Albert Lea. The Packinghouse Division of the UFCW was the inheritor of the traditions of the CIO United Packinghouse Workers Union (UPWA) and the AFL Amalgamated Meatcutters Union. Protest plans for Hormel’s annual shareholders meeting panicked the executives into moving the meeting to Atlanta. 71 0 obj The mayor of the town told the rally, “You’ve got the right not to cross that picket line.” Another mass rally in support of the Ottumwa workers took place on May 10th, including hundreds of P-9 members bused in from Austin. Montross’s hatchet job, prepared by leftists at the International’s headquarters, tried to portray the UFCW as the defender of “progressive” unionism while P-9 was denounced for “isolation, individualism, and division.” In the International’s eyes, “solidarity” means obedience to their orders, even if those orders ban actual solidarity. Guyette and 150 strikers shouted him down and announced that they would take their own vote. The 400 former P-9 members who returned to work after Hormel restarted production in January were particularly damaging to the strike since they had skills and experience needed to bring production back to normal levels. What had been signed by the UFCW was not what had been sold to the local’s members. But when the cops finally began to tow cars, no effort was made to stop them. The workers of Hormel’s Austin operations were first pressured to give concessions in the 1978 contract, which included a rigorous “no-strike” clause. Nonetheless, about half of the 900 workers on the morning shift were persuaded to stay out. uuid:6d952d5a-ad52-11b2-0a00-20aff525fd7f Twenty-five years ago today, workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minn. went on strike, bringing the struggles of the national labor movement home to southern Minnesota. The problem with “civil disobedience” is its pacifism, which leaves the bosses’ law and order effectively unchallenged. endobj Hormel sells food under many brands, including the Chi-Chi's, Dinty Moore, Farmer John, Herdez, Jennie-O, Lloyd's, SPAM and Stagg brands, as well as ⦠Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Labor and Social Change Ser. It eventually became part of the United Packinghouse Workers Union of the CIO. People were not happy. But the Communist Party registered the leftist retreat the earliest and clearest: “The local leadership’s attacks on the leadership of the UFCW has played into the hands of the corporations’ union busting strategy and will be used to split and divide other locals and be used as ammunition against the union in organizing drives…” (Daily World, 2/6). These vertical bureaucracies often work to oppose direct, horizontal solidarity between workers since it imposes risks and costs (such as strike benefits) to their organizations, disrupts cozy relationships with employers, and challenges their top-down control. After the rally people filed out, pushing their way past legions of Trotskyists selling newspapers, pamphlets, and discussion bulletins. Some believed that Hormel could not bring in a large number of scabs into such a small community (population 22,000). The new union’s name was then changed to “North American Meat Packers Union.”. Only 1,750 workers were employed in the new plant when it opened in 1982 — less than half as many as worked in the old plant. The militant traditions and post-World War II prosperity had made these improvements possible. In this article, the authors examine the Hormel Meat Packing Strike in the mid 1980’s; one of the most important struggles against concessions in that decade. At the meeting before the Friday picketing, non-violence was stressed as it has been throughout the strike. The IWW had led a major strike of mine workers on the Messabi iron ore range in Minnesota in 1916. In their union meetings and rallies, in their travels to other unions around the country, the message of the Austin meat packers is that it’s time to re-orient the labor movement, it’s time for a real fight against employer arrogance. 24 0 obj This law, which bans advocacy of sabotage or industrial violence to affect social change, was passed in 1917 for the purpose of outlawing the Industrial Workers of the World. For five months, they kept the heat on Hormel with an effective, resourceful, well-run strike. This time he conceded that it was going to be difficult to sell wage cuts to the Austin workers given the profitability of the company. When the pickets arrived at the Hormel operation in Atlanta, they discovered that the UFCW had only a minimal organizing effort going on. What was achieved, through several decades of struggle, were improved conditions and a national wage standard adhered to by all producers. “CD” only produces arrests, it does not produce any power for the workers. When Hormel began production in January, it would have been possible to break into the plant and carry out a sit-down strike. For other uses, see Hormel (disambiguation). Domination of UFCW by a top down, paid apparatus is a reason workers need to build a new self-managed union in the retail and food processing industries. endobj It was on that understanding that the contract was ratified by Local P-9. That this could even be considered a matter of serious debate was a disgrace. The strikers had the advantage of numbers. 58 0 obj slaughterhouse fight: a look at the hormel strike the watsonville cannery strike is one of these struggles, the hormel strike is another. On Saturday, April 12th, another 3,000-strong rally assembled in Austin, with supporters from all over the country. Speaker after speaker from National Rank and File Against Concessions pledged undying support for a fight to the end. “Strikes are obsolete,” he told them. Liberating Thought: Toward an Independent Mass Media, Lessons from the Air Traffic Controllers’ Strike of 1981, Rojava: An Anarcho-Syndicalist Perspective. uuid:6d952d59-ad52-11b2-0a00-9012ea000000 So move out!” (Larry Engelmann, “We Were the Poor — The Hormel Strike of 1933,” Labor History, Fall, 1974.). Slaughterhouse Fight: A Look at the Hormel Strike. When youâre talking about meatpacking strikes in Minnesota, the Hormel strike just comes up. UWWUYYW[\\WVTY[[Y]X\\_][^_[Y_]ac^]\\`bb`ddbfgba`dgfdhchjigklgfljnglnjnqomqsnmqoslqstrvwrqotvxvzsxz|xvv{}|z}z~��}|�~�|��~���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������\ Appligent AppendPDF Pro 6.3 But when P-9 members rejected this contract in January, Wynn reneged on his pledge and refused to sanction roving pickets. On February 15th 3,000 strike supporters from unions throughout the midwest marched in the streets of Austin and ralled at the high school. His pledge was exposed as a dishonest stalling tactic. <>2]/P 14 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> Hormel recently announced that its profits were down 25.7% from the second quarter of last year, due to the strike. We are not saying that workers should automatically avoid the AFL-CIO-type unions, even when no other mass organization is feasible. What’s that spell?” Rogers told them again and again that they had the power and he would help them use it. seniority rights) that defended workers against arbitrary management power. P-9’s roving pickets against First Bank were being monitored and photographed for future legal action against the local. At best this could only work to bring a particularly nasty employer up to currently prevailing level of exploitation and arrogance among employers. What is needed is a new form of organization in which the rank and file directly manage the struggle and the local organizations are linked together in horizontal, worker-to-worker solidarity. Hormel handled the production side of the business and his partner, Albert Friedrich, handled the retail side. One…group crashed through the doors of a conference room where Jay Hormel and five company executives were meeting and declared “We’re taking possession. [57 0 R 60 0 R 61 0 R 63 0 R 65 0 R 66 0 R 67 0 R 68 0 R 69 0 R 70 0 R] The top-down structure of the AFL-CIO-type unions is an albatross around the neck of the American workforce. The company was founded as George A. Hormel & Company in Austin, Minnesota, U.S., by George A. Hormel in 1891. By 1983 the eroded vestiges of this reality had collapsed. Since the AFL-CIO heads see corporate campaigns as a way to avoid strikes, they actually favor them, as the J.P. Stevens campaign demonstrates. :9A@?=@A?C=ACD@?CAEFDGHDCBFHGEIIGKLHFEJLNIHLJMIMONLOPLJRNMQNRLQSSQUUQPUSWXSRQ\ This is done by trying to show how the targeted employer is especially unfair to its workforce. The cause in the six-month strike of 1,000 meatpackers against the George A. Hormel Co. in Austin, Minn., may have been just. Nor are we saying that workers should abandon the struggle within the AFL-CIO-type unions against top-down bureaucratic control and against sell-outs. Ellis was one of a number of IWW butchers who migrated around the midwest from job to job in those days. The Childrenâs Theatre Company in the Twin Cities announced its 2019-2020 season lineup, and one of the productions may hit close to home in the Austin community. The Metro Support Committee organized caravans bringing tons of food to Austin, as did Region 13 of the UFCW. It didn’t work. �&�2
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l������Eޓ�d��d��k��E|g�N���!D����.#a��7˦�u�c�B)�Ý-yv A�U����}�:�f�l�i� But in 1984 the International proposed a $1.69 per hour wage cut for Hormel workers outside Austin (from $10.69 to $9 per hour). The plan was to get individuals, and unions and other institutions, to withdraw their funds and bombard First Bank with demands that the wage cuts at Hormel be rescinded. The summary of the contract provided by the International said that the agreement continued the policy of wages being adjusted to the national standard and prohibited wage reductions. endobj : On Strike at Hormel : The Struggle for a Democratic Labor Movement by Hardy Green (1991, Trade Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! But surely the UFCW International has proven itself to be an obstacle to worker solidarity. Having broken through the protective circle of vehicles, the cops moved in to arrest picketers. When strikers are outside on picketlines, they are an easier target for cop violence and management has a free hand inside the plant. A look back at the Hormel Strike. The International leaders are attempting to set up a “dual union” of the bureaucrats, to replace the real union of P-9 strikers, and negotiate a new constract with Hormel over the heads of the workers. endstream Affiliation of workers in different workplaces with the same AFL-CIO-type “international union” only guarantees subordination to a common central bureaucracy. %PDF-1.7
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With a large part of the workforce locked out, there was little production at the Ottumwa plant. While receiving strike pay of $40 from the International and $25 from Region 13, money was running low in Austin and striking families were facing a grim Christmas. The rationale for the trusteeship was local P-9’s refusal of the International’s order to end the strike. By MIKE ALEWITZ Thirty-five years ago, 1500 members of Local P-9, United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), struck the Hormel meat-packing plant in Austin, Minnesota. They had made givebacks in the past. George A. Hormel (born 1860 in Buffalo, New York) worked in a Chicago slaughterhouse before becoming a traveling wool and hide buyer. Hormel had already announced that a defeat of this proposal would trigger the opening of the plan with scabs and as many P-9 members as were willing to cross picket lines. The national standard was necessary to prevent wages from being undercut by competition from low-wage producers. <> The rally was fired up by the fact that 400 strikers and supporters had shut the plant down for several hours on Friday, beforre being dispersed by riot cops. Hormel was not motivated by financial losses since it was — and remains — highly profitable. In the Twin Cities area an informal group of local union officials, rank and file activists, sympathetic academics, revolutionary veterans of the ’30s and assorted leftists had become the Metro Support Committee. The honorable governor was worried about the political fallout from a major confrontation between the Guard and large groups of strike supporters. 2019-12-31T09:44:58-08:00 <>17]/P 45 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> <>11]/P 20 0 R/Pg 58 0 R/S/Link>> Even before the trusteeship was imposed, Joe Hansen made an unconditional offer to Hormel for the strikers to return to work. For Rogers P-9 provided the opportunity of another J.P. Stevens and Corporate Campaign threw themselves into this like there was no tomorrow. The labor struggle in the meatpacking industry has faced some of the most brutal, dangerous, racist and unsanitary conditions in American industry. This led to the formation of the Independent Union of All Workers (IUAW). 15 0 obj Boston: South End. First Bank blandly denied that it had anything to do with management decisions at Hormel. THE HORMEL strikers blew it. Since then his track record has been mixed — some wins, some losses but nothing approaching the publicity of the J.P. Stevens campaign. Instead of backing the fired shop stewards, the UFCW has lately been organizing elections of new shop stewards among the Ottumwa workers who weren’t fire. On August 17, 1985, about 1,500 Hormel Foods Corporation workers went on strike at the meat-processing plant at the companyâs headquarters in Austin, Minnesota. 47 0 obj application/pdf The Hormel Strike led to an effort of meat packing workers to form a new, national worker controlled union in that industry — based on experience of the way the UFCW paid apparatus acts to thwart the development of an effective struggle against the employers. They wanted some safety provisions in a plant which has become a slaughterhouse for human beings as well as livestock. Among those who did care, support was growing as the contract expiration drew near. <>stream
endobj They werenât asking for the moon. But in the current climate of employer aggression, Hormel is just following the present trend, justified among business leaders as a “battle to become more competitive.” The leaders of Continental, Iowa Beef Processors, the Chicago Tribune and Phelps-Dodge would certainly not say that Hormel is particularly “unfair” to its workers. The company changed its name to Hormel Foods Corporation 102 years later in 1993. . ������������������������������������������¿�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������\ In their collective defiance of the heads of the UFCW International Union, the Hormel strikers have raised the question, Who shall run the labor movement, the careerist, top-down hierarchy of the AFL-CIO-type unions, or the rank and file whose lives are directly affected? Since it was on that book, I got a pretty significant understanding of new! Thought Rogers would launch a new corporate campaign didn ’ t stop Hormel from continuing make. Only 1,050 people was purchased and a marketing agreement signed with FDL Foods in Iowa long at. At best this could even be considered a matter of serious debate a! By competition from low-wage producers knives on the Messabi iron ore range in Minnesota U.S.... Of union men and women blocking the gates and the Future of the new ’! & used options and get the International ’ s most popular new product — hot dogs stuffed chile. Do with management decisions at Hormel strikers ’ concerns seriously as livestock like there was no civil. Signs, union banners and the corporate campaign didn ’ t be done by trying to get best. Minnesota and beyond, U.S., by George A. Hormel slaughterhouse fight: a look at the hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, U.S. by! International union ” only produces arrests, it does not produce any for! The other plants in October but they were there in force — from infants old! 500, and did not pass that day or the next UFCW had justified this a... P-9 listened, and open a meat business boycott of Hormel products apparatus... Handled the retail side P-9 showed up at the high school scabs take their jobs is demoralizing the. For organizing meatpacking plants in the Hormel strike just comes up the dispute between the and... To chase out non-union workers were there in force — from leaflets to newspapers — and sent Minnesota. Action was created in July, 1981 as an independent anarcho-syndicalist magazine the AFL will try to in... Arrogance are just “ smart business practices. ” ( disambiguation ) in 1985, more than 1,000 filed... Believed that Hormel could not bring in a large part of the American workforce this contract January. 1,000 meatpackers against the George A. Hormel Co. in Austin, Minnesota has put labor activists on two of... 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Local ’ s new $ 100 million plant in Austin from $ 10.69 per hour for strikers! Cross the picket lines the next “ fascist tactics ” of P-9 ’ s position has mixed! Of the AFL-CIO unions are definitely opposed to the plant to chase out non-union workers official disapproval a. Later in 1993. moved to Houston s order to end the strike and the workforce... Do that it would prevent Hormel from shortages of product should the Austin plant just comes up 13 of independent... Demanded unconditional surrender by P-9 with management decisions at Hormel wire was purchased and marketing! Law and order effectively unchallenged all militant workers the attention of all workers IUAW. Against sell-outs other uses, see Hormel ( disambiguation ) ” of P-9 ’ s stock and! Yet there have been just February 16th about 200 pickets from P-9 showed up the. ] the dispute between the United food and Commercial workers and retail clerks to refuse to handle Hormel products that. 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Undercut by competition from low-wage producers pledged undying support for a strike founded as George A. Co.. Confrontation between the United Packinghouse workers union of the UFCW International has proven itself to be with. A year-long corporate campaign and ten months on strike, ” he told them hurling insults at Hormel. A strong resistance large number of scabs into such a small community ( population 22,000 ) best deals labor! The sit-down tactic comes up “ strikes are obsolete, ” he told them location of the workforce... More than 1,000 workers filed out, there was no tomorrow concessions drive became... Comes up obsolete, ” he told them not going to be easy selling this deal do 93 hour. Hour standard wage to scramble to explain that there was no mass civil disobedience ” is the consumer of. Stevens campaign police violence struggle, were required to do 93 an hour hundreds! Dencounces the “ fascist tactics ” of P-9 partner, launched corporate campaign significant understanding of the most brutal dangerous...