P-9 workers explain issues in Hormel strike

Scan page 4

and supporters outside Hormel plant Austin, Minn. April 11. on 4 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1986 By SHIRLEY CLEVELAND—I accompanied three striking UFCW P-9 members, Carl Benson, Clarke Dehler, and Al Petersen, on their recent Northeast Ohio tour. Several points they made had a big impact on their audiences.

The whopping 200-percent annual injury rate at the Austin plant is well known. But even more astounding is the annual losttime injury rate of 33 percent.

Police confront picketline of hundreds of Although it only employs 1500 people in Minnesota, Hormel pays the highest workers' compensation premiums in the state because of its excessive injury rates. Even such elementary safety features as showers are missing from this three-yearold "modern" plant.

The company's contract proposal totally eliminates seniority in job selections. Man -agement can remove a worker from a job he or she has performed for years, assigning the worker to a less desirable job and giv - ployee. In fact, one of the scabs complained to local union officials that he was assured of his old job back if he returned to work. However, after working his old job for a few hours, he was forced onto a less desirable one.

The arbitration procedures proposed by the company would allow them to fire any -one they chose. All an arbitrator could rule on in a discharge case is whether the griev -ant was involved in the incident-not whether the incident merited discharge or whether there were mitigating circum -stances.

The proposed agreement also contains a direct attack on workers' First Amendment rights. In addition to the no-strike clause which appears in most labor agreements, it suspended or discharged for strike, slow -down, refusal to work, sympathy strike, picketing, boycotts, handbilling, or to coerce or restrain any business or person from using, selling, handling, transporting, or otherwise dealing in products of the company."

A dangerous concession P-9 offered the company was to guarantee it a $30-million annual profit. If the company's profits fell below $30 million, the workers at the Austin plant would make up the difference on a dollar-for-dollar basis. If the company's profits exceeded $30 million, the Austin workers would receive a 4-cent-perhour raise. The P-9 members explained that the company's immediate rejection of this offer made its union-busting intentions clear.

Scan page 5

... Hormel strikers defy attacks Over 5000 P-9 strikers and supporters rally in Austin, Minn., on April 12. "We can, must, and will win this struggle," P-9 President Jim Guyette told the crowd. Other speakers included leaders of unions, farmer organizations, and Native American and other community groups.

(continued from page 1: “More attacks on Hormel strikers, national boycott campaign urged”)

few pickets to close down Hormel in the face of local cops, sheriffs, and state police from the surrounding area. The police reinforcements were armed to the teeth-including tear gas.

The organizers of Thursday's picketline therefore decided not to put their plan to close down the plant into operation, thereby challenging a local judge's unconstitutional injunction against the right to peaceful assembly.

At the Thursday-evening strike meeting, the organizer, a local strike supporter and wife of a Local P-9 member, urged a big turnout for the Friday action. She said the plan to close down the plant would be put into effect the next morning if enough pickets showed up. She also appealed for volunteers to serve as picket captains for the next day's action.

The captains met Friday at 3:30 a.m. to hear the details of the previously undisclosed strategy and to help organize the picketing.

A half-hour later, the plan of action was outlined to some 700 pickets. Four teams were then organized and advised to exercise the highest degree of discipline. hicles and a designated number of pickets.

Although scabs had been arriving for work as early as 1 a.m., the plant was shut down tight. It remained shut until about two hours after the 7 a.m. shift was scheduled to come to work. Cars carrying scabs were rerouted to a parking lot holding area until the cops could break up the picketline.

When daylight broke, the cops began an elaborate series of maneuvers based on the latest "crowd control" (strikebreaking) theories. Police squads, in helmets with face-guards and carrying three-foot-long clubs, moved menacingly from position to position. They were armed with handguns, and some also had rifles and tear-gas guns.

Tear gas proves decisive The 400 to 500 pickets locked arms in front of the circled vehicles at the main gate. They stood their ground. But soon the cops moved in and began to pull the pickets from the line, beating them as they dragged them into waiting police vans.

The tug of war went on in waves for close to two hours. Even though the cops Sociallst punched and clawed at the pickets in the front ranks, they only succeeded in arresting four or five pickets in their repeated forays up until the tear-gas attack.

But it was the use of tear gas that proved decisive. There were too few pickets to rebuild the picketline after the tear gas had subsided.

By the end of the confrontation, 17 strikers and supporters had been arrested. They face felony charges involving five-year jail sentences and up to $10,000 fines. In the past, all those arrested faced misdemeanor charges. This time, the police chief said there was a "riot." Hence the felony charges.

Still, the use of brute force by the cops was relatively limited. The strikebreakers feared that excessive brutality could boomerang, inspiring a more massive action by outraged supporters scheduled to arrive by the thousands for the next day's activities.

Boycott urged

After Saturday's march and rally, several hundred supporters met with Local P-9 leaders to hear an outline of nationwide support activities in which they were urged to participate. P-9 President Jim Guyette reported on plans for a nationally organized system of local support committees.

The stated purpose of the national P-9 organization is to gain support nationally for the victory of the strike and to build a foundation for a nationwide "union strike support network." A central task projected for the nato no support poincals, in material support, is to organize an effective boycott of Hormel products to help bring this company to terms.

This perspective is a useful and effective plan of action that can contribute signi -ficantly to the strike effort and enable Local P-9 to hold out until reinforcements can be mobilized Such reinforcements can result from an extension of the struggle to other unions. P-9 leaders expect that coming negotiations in the next months between other UFCW locals and Hormel could result in a strike-given the relentless anti-union drive of this meatpacking giant. Other deve -lopments, such as the rail strike that has erupted in New England, would also opcn up new possibilities for striking Austin workers.

But, in the final analysis, a boycott alone cannot win this strike. Ultimately the strike must be won on the picketline. Still, the national campaign outlined by P-9 leader Jim Guyette can serve to gain time and prepare the ground for organizing picketline reinforcements for the be -leaguered P-9 strikers.

Class-struggle union fighters should enlist in the national support organization, including making the boycott of Hormel products as effective as possible.

Roland Sheppard, a member of San Francisco Painter's Local 4, speaking at the April 12 Austin mass rally, described the developing fighting mood that is showing up in response to P-9's valiant struggle. He reported: "Our union held a news conference yesterday, and declared that when Local P-9 leaders again call for volunteers, we will help organize Bay Area unionists in trains, planes, and buses to go to Austin to protest the police-state tactics that were carried out yesterday."

----- pull-quotes -----

SOLIDARITY WITH P-9 bOYCOTT nORMEL