Guard Called as Hormel Violence Flares

Striking meatpackers and their supporters blockaded the Geo. A. Hormel & Co. plant Monday, and Gov. Rudy Perpich called out the National Guard to prevent violence as workers crossed the picket lines.

A company worker was injured as he tried to cross a picket line, plant manager Deryl Arnold said. It was the first injury reported since the plant reopened a week ago for the first time in the five-month strike by 1,500 members of Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

About 100 meatpackers, who had been gathered outside the plant’s main gate since early in the day, ended their blockade and began to go home shortly after Perpich’s announcement.

“I think you should make it clear that if they want to call out the National Guard, they should call out the National Guard against the company to protect the people of Austin from what this company is doing to the city and to the people,” P-9 labor consultant Ray Rogers told the striking meatpackers.

“We expect to operate the plant tomorrow, and we understand the National Guard will be present to assure our employees and prospective employees of safe entry and exit at the plant,” Arnold said Monday.

Perpich said he decided to call out the National Guard after receiving a request from Austin Mayor Tom Kough, Police Chief Don Hoffman and the Mower County Sheriff’s Office.

“We were informed that the situation in Austin had exceeded the capabilities of local officials,” Perpich told a news conference in St. Paul. “As governor, I have a constitutional responsibility to protect the lives and safety of Minnesota citizens.”

‘Loss of Law and Order’

Arnold said earlier in the day that there had been “a complete loss of law and order” at the plant.

“The police are powerless to control mob violence, mass picketing, wanton destruction of property, and mob psychology has taken over,” he said.

Local P-9 President Jim Guyette said it was unnecessary for Perpich to call out the guard, and he dismissed Hormel’s statements about violence at the plant gates as “nothing but a fantasy contrived to break the strike.”

“We’re talking about a nonviolent struggle, and there’s been no violence,” Guyette told reporters.

But the police chief said: “It was such a potentially dangerous thing that we needed the governor.”

About 50 cars drove in front of the $100-million plant and stopped, forming a bumper-to-bumper barricade, while about 50 other cars circled the plant and the drivers blew their horns.

Police halted any further traffic from entering the street, preventing cars from entering or leaving the area. Several strikers threw rocks at a pickup truck carrying two workers.

“We don’t feel there should be any arrests (today),” the union’s Rogers said. “A lot of people want to go to the plant and not be hurt and not hurt anyone and be safe in their cars.”

Hoffman said the injured man was treated at a hospital and released.

The violence erupted as Hormel officials began hiring replacements for the strikers.

Local P-9 went on strike last Aug. 17, 10 months after Hormel cut wages 23% and dropped the base wage from $10.69 to $8.25 an hour.