Meat Firm Workers End Strike Despite Making No Gains
The United Food & Commercial Workers Union announced Monday the end of a strike against the West Coast’s largest pork processing plant and the company said virtually all of the employees will be back making Farmer John products by Dec. 16.
The employees will return to their jobs at Clougherty Packing Co. in Vernon under contract conditions identical to those they struck against Oct. 1. Union officials said they hope to negotiate a formal settlement. Although union leaders have ended the strike, they said they will continue to urge consumers to boycott Farmer John products.
At the start of the strike, the union picketed at Dodger Stadium because Clougherty makes the hotdogs sold at the ballpark.
Bill Regan, Clougherty’s director of industrial relations, said the company will take back all the strikers, except “seven or eight” who were fired during the strike for alleged picket line violence. Regan also said that the boycott has had “no impact whatsoever” on sales.
The strikers voted to return to work Saturday, said John Grant, a business agent for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 274. He said there was “strong sentiment” voiced at the meeting for returning to work, even though the union continues to object to changes in wages and benefits imposed by the company.
Grant said about 300 of the original 1,000 strikers had previously returned to work, but Regan estimated that about 450 workers had crossed picket lines.
The previous contract expired Oct. 1. Since then, the company has unilaterally implemented a new three-year contract that includes changes in medical and pension plans and increases wages.
Those returning strikers who were employed prior to October, 1982, will receive a 25-cent-an-hour increase, bringing their base pay to $9.96 an hour, according to Regan. They will get no increases for the next two years, however. Employees who started at Clougherty after October, 1982, will get a 50-cent-an-hour increase immediately, bringing their base pay to $5.50 an hour. This group also will receive 25-cent-an-hour increases in October, 1986, and October, 1987.
The union had demanded that veteran employees receive increases of 75 cents an hour for each of the next three years. It also had demanded that employees hired after October, 1982, be given wage parity with those hired earlier.
Union Had Balked
The Food & Commercial Workers had balked at Clougherty’s plan to withdraw from medical and pension plans that were jointly administered by the union and management and to start its own plan. The company said the change, which now has been implemented, would save money on administrative costs while still providing good benefits to the employees.
