Hormel Workers Lose Jobs for Honoring Picket Lines
Union workers at Geo. A. Hormel & Co. plants in three states were fired Monday for honoring picket lines set up by striking workers from Hormel’s strife-torn headquarters plant in Austin, Minn., company officials said.
The company said it fired the workers at its plants in Ottumwa, Iowa, Fremont, Neb. and Dallas, Tex. for refusing to report to work after strikers from Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents Hormel’s workers in Austin, set up picket lines Monday around all three plants.
Charles Nyberg, a Hormel senior vice president, said the firm fired “a substantial portion” of the 800 workers at its Ottumwa plant when they refused to cross the picket line. A few were fired in Dallas and about 60 were fired in Fremont, according to Nyberg.
Claim Plant Was Shut Down
Hardy Green, a consultant to Local P-9 from Corporate Campaign, a New York-based advocacy group, said that virtually all of the Ottumwa workers refused to go to work and that the plant was effectively shut down by Local P-9’s action Monday.
Green added that the local plans to send pickets to all of Hormel’s plants over the coming days in an attempt to further disrupt the company’s operations. The union also plans to send members to Hormel’s annual meeting in Houston today.
The Austin facility is the only Hormel plant on strike and the United Food and Commercial Workers international union, which opposes Local P-9’s strike, has urged workers at other Hormel plants to continue to work during the dispute.
‘Company Will Have to Bargain’
Jim Guyette, president of Local P-9, said the firings increased the stakes in the dispute. “The fact that the company has fired those people puts us in a position to bargain. The company will have to bargain with us all,” he said.
About 1,500 union workers in Austin have been on strike since Aug. 17, protesting Hormel’s demands that they accept wage cuts of 69 cents per hour, as well as non-wage concessions that would reduce their seniority and grieveance rights. The union workers are also protesting the poor safety record at the plant, which they say has the highest injury rate of any plant in the meatpacking industry.
The Minnesota National Guard has been guarding Hormel’s plant in Austin since last Tuesday. More strikers and newly hired replacement workers reported to work there on Monday, the company said. About 500 workers are now on the job, and the firm is expanding its pork-products processing operations there, according to Deryl Arnold, general manager of the Austin facility.
800 Troops on Duty
Hormel reopened the plant on Jan. 13, and said it would operate with new workers and any strikers willing to cross the picket lines. When the threat of violence along the picket line worsened last week as replacement workers tried to enter the plant, local law enforcement officials asked Minnesota Gov. Rudy Perpich to send the National Guard to restore order.
About 800 guardsmen have cordoned off the facility since, enabling Hormel to gradually increase production. Union leaders, however, have protested that the guard has become little more than a private police force for Hormel.
