1985–1986 Hormel strike
Following this, Local P-9 hired labor activist Ray Rogers and began a corporate campaign against Hormel to pressure them into negotiating a new contract with the union.
As the strike continued, the Minnesota National Guard was called in, and strikers performed multiple blockades of nearby roads leading to the plant, attempting to block strikebreakers from entering.
[1] The organized workers demanded the introduction of a seniority system and union recognition in order to have a more active role in decisions involving wages and working conditions.
[5] On November 10, IUAW members participated in the United States' first recorded sitdown strike,[6] which resulted in three days of negotiations between union representatives and Hormel employers.
Gradually, the IUAW allowed all local unions to pursue this path, and in 1937 the members of the Austin plant narrowly voted to approve an affiliation with the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee of the CIO.
[14] In 1975, citing a need to stay competitive, Hormel declared their intent to construct a new meatpacking facility to replace their flagship plant in Austin, calling the then 80-year-old building outdated.
[10] In December of that year, Jim Guyette, who had been a member of the local's executive board since 1980 and had opposed the concessions, was elected president.
[17] Around this time, meatpacking company Oscar Mayer had negotiated reductions in wages for their employees, and Hormel shortly thereafter began to do the same.
[16] In March 1984, Hormel negotiated a new contract with UFCW Local 431 of their Ottumwa, Iowa plant that included a wage cut from $10.69 to $8.75 per hour.
However, in January the next year, Local P-9 agreed to hire Rogers and CCI, approving a $3 per member per week fee increase to cover the consultant's cost.
[10][18] Rogers hoped that the campaign could convince the bank's board of directors to pressure Hormel into rescinding the wage cuts.
[37] Strikers had wanted a return to the $10.69 per hour wage and alleged that the proposal did not address issues such as seniority and working conditions.
"[37] That same month, Anderson publicly criticized Guyette on television, and the UFCW began to employ red-baiting to further hurt Local P-9.
[40] The governor withdrew the National Guard from the city in February,[22] leaving the handling of the ongoing strike in the hands of the local law enforcement officials.
[2] Following Hormel's reopening, approximately 540 strikebreakers, mostly migrant workers from Mexico, joined 500 union members who crossed their own picket lines to return to work.
[41] In Iowa, their pickets at a plant in Algona went largely ignored by the union members there, while in Ottumwa, approximately 750 workers joined their strike.
[41] Additional roving strikes occurred in Dubuque, Iowa; Fremont, Nebraska; and Dallas and Houston in Texas, with mixed results.
[10] At a small plant in Dallas, operations were temporarily halted after the entire 52 person workforce refused to cross the picket line.
[41] Meanwhile, on February 10, Hormel resumed activities at their Austin plant for the first time since the strike began, with a workforce of over 1,000 strikebreakers and several hundred defected strikers.
[47] On April 13, civil rights activist and politician Jesse Jackson arrived in Austin in an attempt to mediate between the local and Hormel.
[58] The mural depicted a green snake, decapitated by a meatpacker, alongside organized workers, led by one carrying a torch.
Initially called "Original P-9", this name was rejected by the NLRB on the grounds that it was too similar to Local P-9, and so the name was changed to North American Meat Packers Union (NAMPU).
[61] While negotiations continued in Austin, in Ottumwa a mediator ruled that the 507 workers who had been fired at the Hormel plant there in response to the roving picket should be reinstated with full seniority.
[62] By late August, UFCW officials and Hormel had come to an agreement regarding new labor contracts at the Austin plant, and shortly thereafter a vote was held among Local P-9 members.
[10] Officials from the UFCW had managed to gain this concession after Oscar Mayer had announced a similar wage increase that would take effect in 1989.
[64] Former strikers were also put on a preferential hiring list,[10][64] but a clause in the contract barred any employees at the plant from encouraging a boycott of Hormel.
[65][23] This company, called Quality Pork Processors (QPP), took over much of the animal slaughter part of the plant's operations, and by the mid-1990s had brought in a new workforce of mostly Mexican American men.
[68][69] The strike has been covered and discussed in various forms of media, including books by notable labor historians, such as Kim Moody's An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism,[10] Peter Rachleff's Hard-pressed in the Heartland: The Hormel Strike and the Future of the Labor Movement,[70] and Michael Yates's Power on the Job: The Legal Rights of Working People.
[74][75][76] Following this event, similar strikes occurred that saw companies become less conciliatory towards strikers, and in general, membership and the power of organized labor saw a significant decrease during this time.
"[77] Weir also commented on the effectiveness of the corporate campaign, saying that parent union support for Rogers and the CCI could have succeeded at Hormel, citing its success at the Ravenswood strike that occurred several years later.
