BY PATTIE THOMPSON  
JEFFERSON, Wisconsin--Sporting union caps, jackets, and signs, hundreds of strikers, their families, and supporters rallied in front of the Tyson plant here March 16. Members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 538 have been on strike since February 28. They walked out after nine months of contract negotiations failed to push back the company’s demand for numerous concessions.

Members of a number of unions--auto workers, schoolteachers, public employees, steelworkers, Teamsters, carpenters, and others--as well as other meat packers joined in with spirited chants and songs in solidarity with the strikers. Mike Rice, business agent for Local 538, chaired the rally. More than a dozen speakers focused on reasons they are standing up to the company attacks or supporting the fight.

Tyson, the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork, reported income of more than $23 billion in 2002. The company employs 120,000 people in 300 facilities in 29 states and 22 countries. It acquired the Jefferson facility along with dozens of other meatpacking and processing plants in its late 2001 purchase of meat giant IBP, Inc.

Many of the homemade signs and banners alluded to the "corporate greed" of this company, most known for its chicken products, and the cynicism of its new marketing slogan, "Tyson: It’s what your family deserves."

Khadija Boss, 13-year-old daughter of striker Robert Boss, asked participants at the rally, "How is taking away my father’s job or forcing them to take jobs with lower pay good for our families?"

The company’s takeback demands include a two-tier pay scale cutting hourly rates for new hires from $11.10 to $9, and freezing pay for others over a four-year period; eliminating pensions for new hires and freezing benefits for the rest; increasing health-care premiums by as much as $40 a week and eliminating health-care supplements for retirees; cutting sick leave and disability benefits by more than half; reducing vacations, eliminating two paid holidays for new hires; taking away the right to severance pay if the plant closes; and ending the profit-sharing program.

Scott Howard, who has worked there for 19 years, told the crowd, "Now is our time...for the people who do the work to be treated fairly, not just make the rich, richer."

"We had contracts going up and up until 1984," said Arnold Brawders, who described himself as a former employee and 39-year union member. "That year we took a hit of $2 an hour, which they said was to keep them competitive."

"The company has been bought out seven times since I started working there," Allan Vogel stated after the rally. He now has 22 years in the plant. "There has never been a strike. We accepted a bad contract then [in 1984], but never again."

Unionists staff picket lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Honking horns, supporters joining the picket lines, and the numerous donations of food and money have shown the widespread support for the strike in this region.  
 
‘Truth squads’
The strikers are not stopping there. "Truth Squads" of 15–20 strikers each have hit the road to explain their fight, visiting other Tyson-owned meatpacking plants, leafleting, and collecting donations at the plant gates. Only three days after the March 16 rally, a UFCW member staffing the strike headquarters, Shannon Fitzpatrick, said in a telephone interview that squads were out in Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska. "And we’re going to expand from there," promised Local 538 business agent Mike Rice at the rally.

The union is also inviting supporters to another solidarity rally set for Saturday, March 29, 1:30 p.m. in front of the plant.

The broadest solidarity will be necessary to counter the company’s active recruitment of more strikebreakers to cross the picket line starting March 31.

UFCW official T.J. Lauritsen reported that in mid-March Tyson sent the 100 workers they laid off at their Culinary Foods plant in Chicago fliers in English, Spanish, and Chinese advertising work available at $10 an hour along with continuation of health-care insurance at the Jefferson facility. The offer to scab on the strike included transportation and motel rooms. The flier noted that a strike by UFCW Local 538 is occurring at the plant.

This confirmed the feeling several strikers expressed that the company is not planning to shut down this modern, efficient plant, but is not interested in paying the workers the wages and benefits they have fought for and won, either.

Tyson Foods is a Fortune 500 corporation that’s been in business for 68 years. The onset of capitalist depression has affected the company’s profit margins, making investors nervous. Tyson’s stock fell from $15.71 in July to $7.20 per share March 18.

Tyson is using this to justify its drive to cut both wages paid to workers and prices paid to farmers for their livestock. The unionists’ determination to beat back these attacks was reflected in the flier for the March 16 rally. "Tyson Foods workers on strike in the fight of their lives," it said. "Failure is not an option."
 
 
Related articles:
Solidarity with Tyson strikers  
 
 
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