The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 304A voted last night to authorize a strike against Smithfield Foods if the company doesn’t come its way in contract negotiations at the Sioux Falls slaughterhouse. 99% of union members voted last week to reject the contract offered by Smithfield (or, as Governor Noem would call the big meatpackers, the thieving bastards), signaling they don’t feel obliged to make even more sacrifices for the industry that dangerously exploited them through the pandemic:
The Sioux Falls plant was the site of one of the earliest major outbreaks in the industry. Out of a workforce of 3,700, 1,294 have been infected and four have died, according to OSHA. At one point last April, the plant accounted for the large majority of coronavirus infections in the state of South Dakota. Following protests by workers, the plant was temporarily idled.
Opposition is mounting inside the plant, expressed indirectly by huge rates of absenteeism, with hundreds of workers out on long-term medical leave. Forty-nine people quit over the previous week alone, according to UFCW Local 304A President B.J. Motley.
In spite of the public health disaster centered on the plant, Smithfield is arrogantly demanding increases of roughly $200 per year to workers’ out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Workers at the plant already make below the area average for the industry, with a starting wage of $17 per hour compared to $19 at a nearby JBS plant. The UFCW has said it is asking the company to back off on its health care demands and increase starting wages to the level of JBS.
“We’re not heroes anymore, are we?” a worker with nine years at the plant, Anthony Yesker, told the Associated Press. “They should at least look that we all put our lives on the line to keep the company going” [Tom Hall, “Smithfield Meatpackers in South Dakota Reject Local Contract by 99 Percent, Press for Strike Action,” World Socialist Web Site, 2021.06.07].
Sioux Falls meatpackers last struck in 1987, when Smithfield was still John Morrell. Back then, Sioux Falls meatworkers picketed in support of their exploited brothers in labor at the Sioux City slaughterhouse, although Sioux Falls workers had plenty to complain about, too. In response to that strike, Morrells replaced more than half of the striking union workforce with scabs.
At the time of the 1987 strike, unemployment in South Dakota was above 4%. Unemployment now stands at 3%, and everyone says its hard to find workers. It would thus seem that Smithfield would have a harder time finding scabs to cross picket lines and chop hogs all day. This strike threat in Sioux Falls may thus provide a good test of whether labor can now use the tight labor market as well us a lot of pent-up worker frustration from the pandemic to press for better working conditions.
The reason SD employers are short handed is because the majority of SD citizens are mean to Mexicans.
A union is always good, most of the time, police unions have been too good.
Good. Raise salaries, benefits or import 4,000 Chinese workers, or move the plant to China. The 2d and 3d items will put the Sioux Falls rhinos nickers in a bunch.
Aw, balony John, there was a day when all the meat plants in the state, Morrells Hormels, Armours, were all unionized and paid close to the best wage in the market.The new ownerships busted the unions and run a grade D operation. The meat packing industry has been a failure of capitalism.A union will just impart some discipline to the labor -management relationship at Smithfield. Organize!!!
The last year my union member dad worked at Morrell’s, he made the equivalent in today’s dollars of $62/hr. Plus – our family’s health care benefits were fully paid for by the company with no such thing as co-pays or deductibles. yep – at one time Morrell was the driver of the economic engine of Sioux Falls. Then came Janklow and Citi Corp.
Profound comments gents:)
The plant all of its employees and the company Smithfield.. Are owned by China. We sold off our meat market to the chinese
Kovid Kristi being awful quiet in this regard, isn’t she? Or did her $$$ spokesman Fury quit too? Lettin’ the natives and workers get kinda ‘uppity’ just ain’t her style!
Let’s hope the UFCW can restake labor’s claim to doing good for South Dakota workers. You’d think Smithfield’s Chinese Communist owners would be all about sharing power and wealth with the working class. (Oh yeah, Animal Farm….)
Richard: $62 an hour, and benefits? Wow, union days were the good old days. I’ll bet the meat tasted better then, too.
Governor Noem says Smithfield is “stealing” from her constituents. But when her constituents start making noise at the plant and demand better working conditions, the Governor says nothing about how Smithfield is stealing its workers lives and well-being. Somebidy should run for Governor and say that about Kristi in every public appearance. Might get votes from the working class.