Workers strike at one of the largest US meatpacking plants will continue for a 3rd week
DENVER — Thousands of striking workers at one of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants will extend their strike into a third week as they push for higher wages and better health care.
Industry experts said it’s too early to know whether the strike, which began March 16 at Swift Beef Co.’s plant in Greeley, Colorado, will affect retail beef prices, which have already soared to record levels.
“The workers know the value of their labor,” union President Kim Cordova said Friday. “This could be a long and tiring fight.”
The plant’s owner, JBS USA, said Friday it was operating the plant at limited capacity and shifting beef production elsewhere to meet customers’ needs.
Jennifer Martin, an animal sciences major at Colorado State University, said that while negotiations have stalled, the company remains in a strong position relative to striking workers.
This is because the industry is suddenly less burdened by excess cutting capacity, which keeps profit margins low. Martin said companies have seen profits rise amid the Greeley strike and other reductions in slaughterhouse capacity, including the closure of Tyson Foods’ large plant in Nebraska.
“That’s not necessarily in the employee’s favor,” he added. “Not having the harvesting capacity at one site right now could actually be a benefit to the larger industry in terms of improving margins.”
This is the first strike at a U.S. slaughterhouse since workers struck at the Hormel plant in Minnesota in 1985. it took more than a year and there were also violent clashes between police and protesters.
The Greeley strike began with the support of 99% of the plant’s 3,800 workers who are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union. Thousands of people have come to the picket line in the last two weeks.
Union officials say the company’s 2 percent wage increase offer is below inflation.
JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company, with a market value of $17 billion. It’s the top employer in Greeley, a city of about 114,000 people about 50 miles northeast of Denver.
“We are maintaining supply, supporting the long-term stability of the beef chain and minimizing disruption for producers, customers and consumers,” JBS spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said in an email. “Our priority is to keep the product moving as we work toward a solution in Greeley.”
In 2020, the Greeley plant was the scene of Colorado’s deadliest workplace coronavirus outbreak, with 291 infections and six deaths among factory workers. During the outbreak, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to keep meatpacking plants open across the United States due to concerns about the pandemic’s impact on the nation’s food supply.
Federal regulators later fined JBS $15,615 for failing to protect its employees.
Martin said that in the wake of the pandemic, beef companies have invested billions of dollars to increase slaughter capacity and ensure adequate meat is available to consumers.
But recent years have seen cattle numbers in the U.S. fall to a 75-year low, partly due to drought and low prices offered to farmers. This means additional slaughter capacity is not available as needed, Martin said.
JBS was approved for trading on the New York Stock Exchange last May despite environmental opposition and a federal investigation that led to his guilty plea to bribing Brazilian officials for financing for his U.S. expansion.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
