Intraunion Dispute Muddies Hormel Strike

An important element in the violence-threatened 5-month-old strike at the Geo. A. Hormel & Co. meatpacking plant in Austin, Minn., is a furious intraunion battle that is badly weakening union workers.

The strikers conceivably could win, but the odds against their victory--small from the day the strike began--are growing steadily worse.

Deep divisions between the company and the Austin strikers over wages and other contract issues caused the walkout, which has already pitted worker against worker and caused severe economic losses to a badly divided community heavily dependent on Hormel, the area’s largest employer.

Exacerbating the problem is the deep split between international officers of the AFL-CIO United Food & Commercial Workers and leaders of UFCW Local P-9 in Austin. Disputes between unions and management rarely result in strikes; in fact, more than 95% of all contracts are negotiated without strikes. But even more rare are intraunion battles--in this case between the local union and its international parent--particularly those battles that come after a strike has actually started. The intraunion dispute at Hormel stems in large part from the question that faces all employers and unions in labor disputes: When does one side or the other give in and, in effect, admit defeat?

The international officers want the Austin strikers to give in, settle the contract dispute with Hormel and return to their jobs. Based on the odds against them, that would seem to be sensible advice. But, in vote after vote, they have rejected their own international leaders’ advice that they quit the battle.

The local officers, apparently backed by a majority of the 1,500 strikers, not only want to continue the strike but also want to extend it by picketing other, non-struck Hormel packing plants around the country and by waging a massive nationwide boycott against all Hormel products. And adding to the split between the international officers and the strikers over the actual issues in the contract dispute are ideological differences that have resulted in outright hatred.

The local officers have hired a controversial labor relations consultant, Ray Rogers, who heads the New York-based Corporate Campaigns Inc. The militant Rogers has apparently become a critical focal point in the dispute.

In a recent interview, Rogers denounced the international officers, charging that they are selling out the strikers and disgracing not only their own union but the entire labor movement.

Rogers singled out UFCW international President William Wynn as the “prime culprit in this disgraceful situation. He just doesn’t seem to care what happens to those union members struggling so valiantly in Minnesota against a prosperous company trying to break the union and cut their wages further and further so the company can make more and more profits.”

Wynn scorns such attacks, charging that consultants such as Rogers are out to make money for themselves and that, even if they are competent--which he says Rogers is not--they should never be significant decision-makers in unions.

Wynn recently attacked the Austin strike, insisting that he would not approve extending the strikers’ picket lines to other Hormel plants.

“I cannot in good conscience urge other Hormel (union) members to risk their jobs and respect an unsanctioned line in a hopeless cause,” he said.

Earlier this month, Wynn ordered a secret ballot vote by mail on whether to end the strike. He felt that, when unionists had voted to continue the strike during mass membership meetings, the militants among them so stirred the emotions of those at the meetings that they were unable to make calm, considered judgments. But the mail ballot showed an overwhelming majority in favor of continuing the strike.

One problem that seems almost impossible for the international union to resolve stems from the fact that UFCW members at other Hormel plants have already accepted the concessions demanded by Hormel--concessions the company says it must have to remain competitive with non-union firms in the industry.

Clearly, the strikers, backed with data provided to them by Rogers, don’t believe the company’s claims.

The strike began Aug. 17 when the company slashed wages 23% to $8.25 an hour from $10.69. Workers at other plants agreed to accept some concessions and are now making $10 an hour. The strikers have rejected that proposal.

Now the National Guard has been called in to help the company operate with “scabs”--the label given both to union members willing to cross their own picket lines and to workers newly hired to replace the strikers.

Rogers first gained national fame in labor circles when he helped lead what came to be known as a “corporate campaign” against the giant textile firm J. P. Stevens.

The campaign was directed against members of that firm’s board of directors, banks and other financial institutions used by the textile company. The campaign worked. Ultimately, the textile firm agreed not to endlessly stall unionization efforts through court appeals, and now several of the firm’s plants are unionized.

Rogers wants the UFCW to wage a similar campaign against Hormel. As of late Tuesday, at least, he and his supporters in the local union seem to be losing not only the strike against Hormel but also their battle against the international union.

Minor Miracle Fades

Two years ago, there was what seemed to be a minor miracle in labor relations: Unions that had long been feuding with Eastern Airlines’ Chairman Frank Borman agreed that they would accept massive contract concessions to save the firm.

In turn, Borman seemed ready to change his confrontational style of management that led many, if not most, of Eastern’s 41,000 employees to call for his resignation a couple of years ago.

That relatively brief period of cooperation seems to have ended.

Now Eastern says it is laying off 1,010 flight attendants, cutting the pay and privileges of the remaining 6,000 and taking other steps to ward off threats by the firms’ creditors to declare Eastern in default of its more than $2-billion debt. The layoffs--and a 2% pay cut--are to be effective Feb. 4.

The moves have demolished the high hopes that both sides had when they first reached their agreement two years ago with the help of former Labor Secretary William Usery. Then, the agreement was to give workers a significant voice in running the company in exchange for significant concessions by the workers. The agreement, reached in December, 1983, meant that Eastern’s employees would give up wages and benefits totaling about $380 million. In return, the workers would get 25% of the firm’s stock and four seats on Eastern’s board of directors.

But fare wars, diminished traffic and other factors have put Eastern back in the red. Borman, instead of continuing the cooperative effort that he began two years ago, announced that he was going to permanently restructure labor costs rather than continue asking workers to join management in deciding what, if any, labor cost cuts were needed on a year-to-year basis.

The first target of Borman, once again a hard-liner, is the flight attendants, whose union leaders charged that Borman has now “declared all-out war” on Eastern’s employees and unions.

Union members on the firm’s board of directors are a minority in opposing Borman’s plans and thus are powerless to change them except through a strike.

On Monday, Robert Callahan, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 553, told Borman that “since it is a fight you want, we will fight you in the board rooms, in the banks, in the media, on Wall Street and with the public . . . and maybe in the streets.”

Borman and his corporate allies at Eastern insist that they had no choice since the firm’s creditors earlier this month ordered the Miami-based airline to get major labor concessions or face default of its debt to about 60 lending institutions, including Chase Manhattan Bank, Citibank and several European banks.

Borman says he also will permanently slash wages and benefits of another 17,000 Eastern workers represented by the Air Line Pilots Assn. and the International Assn. of Machinists.

Eastern rejected a proposal from the Federal Mediation Service to call on a neutral arbitrator to resolve the dispute, but flight attendants have at least temporarily delayed a strike action in response to Borman’s actions.

Union officials, who have had access to Eastern’s financial records as members of the firm’s board of directors, concede that some further labor cost cuts are needed. But the cooperation between workers and management didn’t produce the productivity results either side expected, and Borman’s return to his old, confrontational management style leaves little hope that true cooperation with the unions and workers can be resumed without one or more strikes.

The unusual agreement reached two years ago might have worked if the banks and other lending institutions had not been so insistent on collecting payments as they came due. And it might have worked if the unions had been quicker to reassure management that they were ready to accept further concessions to make the airline profitable.

But Borman’s unilateral decision to take economic action against the workers without either accepting arbitration or waiting to see if the unions would negotiate the concessions they said are needed seems to have ended any hope for a peaceful agreement at Eastern.

The Battle Continues

Rebellious Los Angeles area local leaders of the Amalgamated Transportation Union have won a major battle in their war with Greyhound Lines and many of their own union’s top officers. Thus, the fight within the union seems to have ended, or at least simmered down substantially. But the war with Greyhound is far from over.

The top officers of the union refused to either recommend that union members accept or reject a Greyhound contract proposal to freeze wages for four years in return for a few job-security promises. In fact, a letter sent out by some top officers of the union sounded as though they were actually recommending acceptance of the contract despite agreement within the union that the top officers would remain neutral.

James Cushing-murray, president of Los Angeles Local 1222, challenged the legality of the vote in view of the wording of the letter and other factors, and he demanded a new vote.

But Local 1222 lost that argument, and on Tuesday, the ballots, which had already been cast, were counted. To the delight of the local officers, the contract was rejected by a vote of 4,600 to 3,202.

The local union leaders wanted the contract turned down because they charged that Greyhound Chairman John Teets was demanding far greater concessions from the workers than the company really needed. They complained that the other union officers had wrongly agreed to submit the latest company demands for more concessions to a vote of the members since the union is still in the second year of a three-year contract agreement.

That earlier agreement resulted in $60 million in annual wage cuts and other contract concessions accepted by Greyhound workers in 1983 only after the workers lost a sometimes violent seven-week strike.

Teets has become the symbol of a hard-line manager determined to boost company profits by drastically cutting wages and benefits even when the company is relatively prosperous. But he insists that the earlier cuts were essential and that more are needed to keep the bus line competitive with airlines and other forms of transportation.

The latest contract rejection by the union still leaves the issue unresolved. A company spokesman said the firm will announce its next move within 30 days.

Union leaders are now meeting in Phoenix, Greyhound’s headquarters, to see if they can agree among themselves on a counteroffer to the company and to work out a procedure that will avoid a repetition of the intraunion fight over the now-rejected contract.