USA Hormel strike signals growing union militancy THE TEN-MONTH-LONG strike by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local P-9 at Hormel in Austin, Minnesota, has received exceptional attention from all sides concerned with the sharpening struggle between employers and workers in the United States. (1)
The 1,500 Hormel strikers are fighting proposals for wage cuts, changes in the seniority system and a plan to introduce a two-tier system for new workers. The strike represents a break with the majority of American unions that have been voluntarily following a policy of "concessions" or "takeback " - that is, surrendering gains made in the past in the name of preserving jobs now.
The following article, from the US newspaper Socialist Action, explains why this strike has been such a focus of attention and soli-
CLOSED AGAIN SCABB have signed union contracts, at least) are in a "partnership" with their workers. This means, in practice, that workers must subordinate wages and working conditions to maintaining the profit rates of their capitalist "partners."
The US capitalist class has, over a long historical period, outproduced its competitors. After World War II, American employers reaped the largest profits from the capitalist world market, despite paying US workers the highest wages in the world. Before that, British capitalism had dominated competition for the greatest share of the world's markets and profits.
But British capitalism lost out to a more dynamic US capitalism after World War I. No sacrifices on the part of British workers could have changed that. And no sacrifice by American workers can save jobs in the current global economic war. Only a perspective of union struggle that points to solutions independent of company profitability can save jobs.
The Local P-9 strike explodes the myth that token picket lines can win strikes. During the years of "prosperity" after World War II, strikes often appeared to be little more than a peaceful waiting game to see which side had the will to hold out longest.
1 labor," International Viewpoint," See "Strike by Local P.9 stirs US International No. 96, April 7, 1986. International Viewpoint 14 July 1986 darity in the US labor movement. NAT WEINSTEIN
Hormel's meatpacking plant in Austin is one of the most efficient and profitable in the country. Up until this strike, the employers' campaign to reduce the living standards of US workers has focused on those ailing sections of the economy where the threat of bankruptey, plant-closings and mass firings had some credibility.
The Austin local [union branch] is one of the industrial unions built through militant struggle during the mass labor upsurge of the 1930s. Local P-9's founders were the first in the United States to employ the sitdown strike to gain union recognition.
Their successful 1933 strike led to an outstanding contract, which included a guaranteee that no layoffs could take place unless Hormel gave notice a year in advance. This was especially noteworthy in a period of widespread unemployment.
While other unions with comparable origins have also been victims of the current 15-year-long takeback campaign, this is the first time determined resistance on the picket line by such an industrial union has been challenged. When the United Auto Workers, for instance, gave historic concessions to the Chrysler Corporation in 1979, it was without a fight and thus without any need by the bosses to attempt to operate a plant with strike-breakers.
The union-busting attack on Local P.9 has developed into a test by the 14 employers to gauge the present fighting ability of workers and their unions. The capitalists, while systematically pressing their takeback campaign, are careful not to move too fast. They are concerned that their union-busting drive does not spark a strong reaction by the workers and blow up in their face.
Such a misjudgement was made when then-President Jimmy Carter invoked the Taft-Hartley Act in an attempt to break a strike of the United Mine Workers in 1978-79. Determined coal-miner resistance and an accompanying wave of support by significant layers of union militants across the country forced Carter and the bosses to retreat. Drawing back in time, the bosses limited their losses. Breaking with the strategy of the labor bureaucracy
Victory for the bosses in the current battle with labor in Austin will encourage the big corporations in future assaults against larger and more powerful industrial unions.
The Hormel strike has led Local P-9 leaders and members to take a step toward a de facto break with the prevailing strategy of the labor bureaucracy. This strategy is based on the delusion that employers (those who
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The Hormel strike shows a new willingness to fight among US workers (DR)
come out on top in the sharpening economic conflict among the world's major industrial capitalist powers.
These "labor statesmen" have put all their chips on winning the gratitude of the bosses in return for their collaboration. They hope to be permitted to continue to collect dues -higher dues from fewer members, no doubt - in exchange for their treachery.
They may also be under the delusion that their capitalist partners will gratefully give back what was taken away when, as they hope, US capitalism comes out on top over its capitalist rivals. There is not a shred of evidence to support this conclusion.
We need not look far to see proof to the contrary. Hormel, the recipient of a long series of concessions which contributed to economie success in its Austin plant, is now paying back the workers in its own inimitable way - with more takebacks!
This policy of collaboration with the employers, if permitted to follow its course to the end, will doom workers to ever-lower living standards, and eventually add millions more to the nool of permanently unemploved the pool of permanently unemployed workers.
It should be remembered that since the end of World War I!, the rise of long-term unemployment has occured in a period of capitalist prosperity. When the economic bubble bursts - which is inevitable - the army of permanently unemployed will grow to new heights. A shorter workweek, with no reduction in pay, along with publicly financed works programs to provide jobs at union scale for the unemployed is the only real answer to capitalist unemployment.
In conclusion, new leaders are emerging from struggles such as the Hormel strike. As working people increasingly confront employers' takeback demands in the coming years, this process will continue. The old leaders with their strategy of collaborating with the employers will inevitably be replaced.
In the meantime, Local P-9's fight continues. The union can gain time and continue to bring pressure on Hormel with its boycott campaign. Every new strike confrontation will tend to raise the banner of Local P.9's struggle alongside its own. And reinforcements may yet come to turn the tide of the strike against Hormel.
But whatever the ultimate outcome of this strike, it will go down in labor history as a sign of a new willingness to fight, and of a growing consciousness of the bankruptcy of official labor strategy.
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The enactment of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 permitted employers to get injunctions against mass picketing. But until recently, while injunctions limiting picketing were routinely granted, token picket lines of a few workers were not directly challenged by the bosses in the major industrial unions.
The apparent ability of a handful of pickets to close down a plant had two adverse effects. It discouraged active participation in the unions -strikes became opportunities for workers to take extended vacations. Second, it eroded the memory of how the unions were built - through mass mobilizations on the picket lines to keep scabs from taking jobs and breaking strikes.
The P-9 strike spotlights the depths of treason to which the top labor officialdom is capable of descending. Both UFCW President William Wynn, Local P-9's parent union, and the President of the American union federation AFL-CIO, Lane Kirkland, have placed the American labor bureaucracy squarely on the side of the strike-breakers.
Wynn has offered, after withdrawing the strike sanction and strike benefits, "postmeager strike benefits" to members of Local P-9 as an inducement for them to scab. To qualify for these "benefits," striking members must put their names on Hormel's list of those willing to scab. Moreover, there is no guarantee that those who capitulate will ever be rehired if the union is crushed.
International Viewpoint 14 July 1986
Furthermore, Wynn has initiated a "trusteeship" action to take over the striking local - remove its democratically elected leadership, entirely abolish P-9 members' democratic rights, confiscate its funds, property and records - and thus deal its Austin affiliate a coup de grace. Enormous pressure on union officials
The top echelons of the AFL CIO bureaucracy, moreover, have brought enormous pressure to bear upon union officials close to the ranks to keep them in line and counter the widespread sympathy for their beleaguered sisters and brothers in Local P-9. Despite these pressures, material support keeps coming in to the striking Austin packinghouse workers.
President Wynn rationalizes the betrayal of his membership with the argument that his intent is to "standardize" wages in the meatpacking industry. His record of having signed more concessions contracts than any other comparable union official -not to mention his current blows against Local P-9 makes clear that by standardizing wages he means making them lower than the level his membership is willing to accept.
William Wynn and Lane Kirkland have shown by their open strikebreaking that they are committed to helping their employer "partners"