The February 9-11 election was a revote of a previous election last April, which the union won by a margin of 52 percent. The April vote was overturned by the NLRB in December on an appeal by Tyson after the local labor board upheld the election.

Tyson organized a concerted antiunion campaign with in-plant meetings, letters to workers, enticements, and threats, workers told the Militant. “The company used threats to scare people into voting against the union, implying they would close the plant if the union won,” said one worker.

In January the owners laid off about 400 workers, claiming they were losing money from the decline in U.S. beef exports after the discovery of mad cow disease at a Washington State plant in late 2003. The previous five-year agreement expired last May. In addition to appealing the results of the decertification election, the union filed unfair labor practice charges against Tyson for failing to bargain in good faith for a contract.

In addition to threats, workers said, the bosses tried to convince them to vote out the union by presenting themselves as benefactors of “Team Members,” as they call production workers. A Vietnamese worker with 25 years at the plant said, “the company paid workers 32 hours pay per week when they were laid off—they didn’t have to do that.” Two days after the union lost the election, Tyson announced that all workers on layoff would be recalled the following week, and scheduled overtime for the next Saturday, for the first time in months.

The union organized a January 29 rally at the Laborers union hall in Pasco to support the Tyson workers in their fight against decertification. Speakers highlighted a report by Human Rights Watch, “Blood, Sweat and Fear: Workers’ Rights in the U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants,” which criticizes Tyson for violating workplace health and safety, workers’ freedom of association, and the rights of immigrants in the meatpacking industry. Teamster members emphasized that a union was needed in order to win safe working conditions, pointing to 2002 federal records that show Tyson’s Wallula plant has an injury rate 2.5 times higher than the industry average. The program also featured Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, who laid out his criticisms of the meatpacking industry.

The company campaign to divide the workers also focused on charging Local 556 union officials with being “confrontational.” The current union leadership was elected in 2000 after a strike against IBP, the previous owner before Tyson Foods bought the plant in 2001.  
 
 
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