L.A. food strike: Lessons of a defeat

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determination of the ranks to continue their eight-week battle. He outraged many strikers by ordering the locals which rejected the contract to vote again on the same offer. He then added these votes to the totals of the locals which had previously voted "yes" and declared that the contract was ratified by a 54-percent vote.

The new meatcutters' contract includes a three-year wage freeze and a two-tier wage scale, coupled with a 50-percent cut in the guaranteed hours of journeymen. Newly hired "meat wrappers" will now be used to perform journeymen duties at $5.53 hourly, nearly half the previous scale.

The unity of the strike was broken when the 12,000 Teamster warehouse workers, voting separately, accepted the "last offer" and slowly returned to work. Their new contract includes a two-tier wage scale limited to a small portion of Teamster work categories. The bosses backed off from their original proposal to operate new warehouses as open shops.

This tactical retreat in respect to the Teamsters, carefully planned by the bosses Hormel strike negotiating arm, the Food Employers Council, was designed to deal a more lethal blow to the meatcutters.

The two meatcutter locals that defied the international bureaucracy by rejecting the contract for a second time also refused to bend to the UFCW demand that the vote be conducted by a mail ballot. Mass meetings of the ranks were organized to discuss the pathetic strike strategy of the union tops as well as the "final offer."

"I'm damned hurt," said Whitey Ulrich, president of Local 551. "God knows I love a fight, but you can't fight everybody," Ulrich told the membership. "We're only as strong as our weakest links and some of those links broke. There's never been stronger support for a strike, and we're still getting kicked.

Dan Swinton, spokesman tops had another view. "I've never seen a labor agreement that didn't result in some people being dissatified, but I think the majority are pleased," he said.

In fact, few if any of the rank-and-file are pleased with the new contract or with the strategy of the officials during the strike. Virtually every mass rally and picket demonstrated the contempt the strikers had for the employers' insulting demands. In the end they were accepted because there seemed to be no alternative.

Blows to the strike From the first day of the strike, the power centers of the food industry, the distribution centers, were left unchallenged by the union officials, who agreed to immediately comply with early injunctions limiting picketing. These centers continued fact that the company has fired those people puts us in a position to bargain," Guyette said. "The company will have to bargain with us all."

Guyette added that P-9 won't sign a contract in Austin unless workers who honored the picket lines at other plants get their jobs back.

There is no doubt that Hormel felt confident at the strike's outset about its ability to impose a 23-percent wage cut, a two-tier wage system, and sweeping concessions in benefits and union pro -tections. After all, drastic union con -cessions have become an all-too-familiar reality in recent years.

But what is not so familiar is the way that the leaders and ranks of P-9 have refused to limp along with the parade of concessions imposed on unions in recent years.

Rather, they have rebelled against Hormel's attempt to cripple their union with takeaways. On this score, Hormel gravely underestimated the fighting resolve and determination of Local P-9.

The union has met every challenge from Hormel head on. It defied Hormel when it announced that it would begin importing scabs into the plant on Jan. 13. It defied Hormel's ultimatum to return to work or be fired.

P-9 defied Gov. Rudy Perpich when he sent in the National Guard on Jan. 21, demonstrating by the hundreds outside the plant. And, it defied its own union International, whose president, William Wynn, has aggressively tried to isolate and defeat this maverick local.

By its courageous battle, Local P-9 is Union officials, under heavy pressure from both the bosses and the ranks, are thrust into the leadership of strikes which threaten to go beyond their control. They seek an early end to these conflicts, viewing the union more in terms of their personal needs rather than the needs of the membership.

Workers are demonstrating the will to fight and take risks to defend their class interests. They are showing a determination to go beyond the "publicity campaign" limits set by the union officialdom.

Successful strikes begin with the collective power of the working class to do the bosses injury, to shut them down, and stop their profits. The example of the raw power of workers fighting for their dignity is the basis for winning the broad solidarity of the entire labor movement and its allies.

The ranks have yet to produce a leadership capable of responding to the union tops and the attacks of the employers and the government at the same time. This leadership will emerge from the daily battles which more and more compel workers to draw the line and retreat no more.

inspiring working people all over the United States. Support for the union has been pouring in from all corners of the country. Workers at an FMC Corp. plant in the Twin Cities area, for example, forced the company to remove vending machines carrying Hormel products from company property, or face their removal by the workers themselves.

In St. Paul, 500 unionists and P-9 supporters demonstrated outside the governor's mansion on Jan. 25, demanding the withdrawal of the National Guard. When a sign was held up asking drivers to "Honk if you support Local P-9," a steady blast of horns quickly sounded throughout this otherwise quiet residential district.

The electrical workers' union in Minneapolis (Local 292) has donated $7000 to the strike effort. The Minnesota and national Teamsters union has donated $20,000, and a UFCW local at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wis., has pledged $10,000. All over the country money and pledges of support are pouring in.

This flood of support from unions is motivated by more than sympathy. Local P-9 is proving that concession-crazed corporations can be fought. A victory by Local P-9 could very well inspire a new wave of labor militancy against the anti-union demands of employers.

Local P-9 has shown that the concessions given up by the top union officialdom in the big industrial unions are not justified by an alleged decline in the strength of the unions. Local P-9's example is a sign of things to come-the beginning of a counteroffensive by the American labor