Workers plan to halt strike at major US meatpacking plant and resume negotiations
GRELEY, Colo. — Workers at one of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants have agreed to return to work and end a three-week strike after plant owner JBS USA agreed to continue negotiations, labor union representatives announced Saturday.
Swift Beef Co. in Greeley, Colorado. The strike of thousands of workers at the factory started on March 16, under the coordination of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union.
The strike comes after cattle numbers in the U.S. hit a 75-year low this year; This decline was partly due to drought and the low prices offered to farmers. Meanwhile, beef prices have risen to record levels.
The union said in a statement that workers will return to work Tuesday morning after plant owner JBS USA agreed to restart talks later in the week. Striking workers in Greeley want higher wages and better health care.
“Workers will remain united and continue to fight,” local union president Kim Cordova said in a statement.
JBS USA spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said the company is “preparing to restart and ramp up operations at its Greeley facility next week.”
“Our Last, Best and Final offer remains on the table,” Richardson said in an email without conditions. “We hope employees will have the opportunity to review and vote soon.”
The strike in Greeley is the first 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.
JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company, with a market value of $17 billion. It is the top employer in the city of Greeley, about 80 miles northeast of Denver, with a population of about 114,000.
Union officials had previously criticized the 2 percent wage increase as being lower than inflation.
JBS said the contract offer was consistent with agreements reached with UFCW union workers at other plants. But Cordova says Colorado has a higher cost of living than other regions, and health care costs eat up most of the wage growth.
100% ground beef price more than twice It has increased from $2.55 to $6.07 per pound over the past two decades, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase increased economic anxiety in the USA
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