“Are you willing to accept frozen wages for four years?” asked UFCW Local 538 president Mike Rice, who chaired the rally and town hall meeting the union held earlier that day. The crowd answered a resounding “No!”

“Are you willing to tell Tyson we appreciate the support from the labor movement?” said Rice. The strikers responded, “Yes!”

One of the speakers at the demonstration was Israel Espinosa, a 21-year-old member of Service Employees International Union Local 1, who walked off the job October 10 against T&J Meat Packing outside Chicago. “We are on strike fighting for the same thing as you are,” he stated. “We are all workers, whether Latino, African American, or other people and we need to unite.” Espinosa told rally participants that the “bosses give us low wages and no benefits.” He voiced support for the strikers at Tyson and urged them to visit the picket line at T&J Meat Packing.

Rice thanked Espinosa for coming to Jefferson and remarked, “We will send some people to Chicago to support you.”

The town hall meeting held earlier, which included local politicians and union officials, featured AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. The labor federation president said he had sent a letter to all national union officers and local union officials urging support for the Tyson strikers, including “raising strike funds” and making donations to Local 538’s Adopt-A-Family program.

Local 538 has organized several solidarity rallies in Jefferson since the meat packers walked out February 28. They rejected the bosses’ proposals to cut hourly rates for new-hires from $11.09 to $9.00 and freeze pay for others over a four-year period. The employers are also demanding the elimination of pensions for new-hires and a freeze on benefits for the others, a hike in health-care premiums by as much as $40 a week, as well as other takebacks.

“When you have gatherings like this it boosts morale,” said striker Chuck Moehling. “We didn’t expect to be out this long. Now it’s more of a mental thing. We need to lean on each other more. It’s going into Christmas and the new year. But I’m like everyone else, I’m not going back into that plant for what they’re offering. This is about the future of the meatpacking industry and future employees.”

Maurice Wilson is a meat packer in Chicago.  
 
 
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