It was not going to be easy selling this deal. ‘We were the poor people” the Hormel strike of 1933. Learn how your comment data is processed. That this could even be considered a matter of serious debate was a disgrace. The line producing Hormel's most popular new product -- hot dogs stuffed with chile -- was dismantled and moved to Houston. The Hormel workers' strike was a significant battle in American labor union history. The workers of Hormel's Austin operations were first pressured to give concessions in the 1978 contract, which included a rigorous "no-strike" clause. The Hormel Strike led to an effort of meat packing workers to form a new, national worker controlled union in that industry — based on experience of the way the UFCW paid apparatus acts to thwart the development of an effective struggle against the employers. 4, pp. "We Were the Poor People" -- The Hormel Strike of 1933, by Larry D. Engelmann. P-9 then sent out roving pickets to spread the strike and shut down production at the other plants in the Hormel chain. There was conflicting information about this strike, as it lasted for three days, from November 10th, 1933 to November 13th, and some listings suggested it started on the 13th. Management would think twice before ordering a cop assault to clear the plant of sit-down strikers. This last step was the most significant in that it would prevent Hormel from shortages of product should the Austin plnat be shut down. 483-510. Knowing that help from the UFCW would be non-existent, Guyette called a New York public relations firm to ask for help in getting the local's message across. The shut down came on August 7th and stretched through the fall and into winter. The local union president, Mel Maas, stood at the plant gates, along with representatives from the UFCW International, telling workers this was not a sanctioned picket and that they should go to work. When strikers are outside on picketlines, they are an easier target for cop violence and management has a free hand inside the plant. One . The final company offer waas for $10 per hour for the current workforce. The local union, P-9 of the Food and Commercial Workers, overwhelmingly rejects a contract offer with a $2/hour wage cut. The immediate response to the wage reduction was a call for strike action -- against the contract, the company and anybody else who was trying to gut their wages. The differential in pay between what P-9 wanted and what Hormel offered had been steadily narrowed by arbitrators' rulings before the strike and mediators proposals after the strike began. The corporate campaign failed because it was based on flawed assumptions. The assumption is that workers should appeal to "public opinion" rather than to solidarity from other workers. (1974). In 1933 it conducted a sitdown strike at Austin, the first sitdown strike of the Depression. It eventually became part of the United Packinghouse Workers Union of the CIO. Local P-9 had wanted to restore the old $10.69 per hour standard wage. The militant traditions and post-World War II prosperity had made these improvements possible. The organized workers demanded the introduction of a seniority system and union recognition in order to have a more active role in decisions involving wages and working conditions. The leaders of Continental, Iowa Beef Processors, the Chicago Tribune and Phelps-Dodge would certainly not say that Hormel is particularly "unfair" to its workers. Event: 1st modern sit-down strike, Hormel meat packers, Austin, Minn. More Notable Events on November 13: 1994 Sweden agrees to join European Union 1982 Vietnam War Memorial dedicated in Washington D.C. 1956 Supreme Court … They made a deal with William Wynn, who pledged to approve the roving pickets if negotiations with Hormel failed. 1933: Workers at the Hormel plant, upset a new insurance program that would cost them 20 cents per week ($3.88 adjusted for inflation), organize into a union and demand recognition from corporate. In 1933 the meatpackers at the Hormel plant launched the plant's first labor strike. People in Minnesota have made a living through a variety of ways, including subsistence farming, hunting and gathering, trade, and managing businesses. Later, William Wynn and Lane Kirkland stood cheek to jowl for the press while Wynn dencounces the "fascist tactics" of P-9. What's that spell?" Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), made up of workers at Hormel's main plant at Austin, Minnesota, has attempted to break out of isolation in several ways: a "Corporate Campaign" that tried to bring consumer pressure against Hormel's main bank, a consumer boycott of Hormel meat products, and by roving pickets sent to other Hormel plants. Even boring speeches were interrupted by standing ovations again and again. See also Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Move ment in the United States: The Industrial Workers of the World, 1905–1917 (New York: International Publishers, 1965), pp. Nor are we saying that workers should abandon the struggle within the AFL-CIO-type unions against top-down bureaucratic control and against sell-outs. He came to Austin and sold Guyette -- and then the membership -- on a campaign to restore to P-9 what Hormel and the UFCW had taken away. The weakness of P-9's position has been its inability to close down operations at the Austin plant. To develop an effective challenge to the employing class and unionism self-managed by the rank and file, it is going to be necessary to develop new organization. But in 1984 the International proposed a $1.69 per hour wage cut for Hormel workers outside Austin (from $10.69 to $9 per hour). While receiving strike pay of $40 from the International and $25 from Region 13, money was running low in Austin and striking families were facing a grim Christmas. When the state outlaws the most effective forms of worker action, such as sit-down strikes and refusing to handle scab goods, the union heads simply go along with this because they try to avoid any action that may put their organization at risk or threaten to disrupt their long-standing relationships with management and government leaders. It was on that understanding that the contract was ratified by Local P-9. Speaker after speaker from National Rank and File Against Concessions pledged undying support for a fight to the end. Most unionized supermarket clerks belong to the UFCW. The tactic works; Hormel agrees to submit wage demands to binding arbitration. The problem with "civil disobedience" is its pacifism, which leaves the bosses' law and order effectively unchallenged. And obviously Rogers' strategy did not avoid arrests or police violence. What had been signed by the UFCW was not what had been sold to the local's members. We are not saying that workers should automatically avoid the AFL-CIO-type unions, even when no other mass organization is feasible. After all the media attention and the hundreds who have attended the support rallies, what's left is the remnants of a proud local union fighting a lonely battle against company greed and AFL-CIO betrayal. Until the 1980s, the union maintained a strong workforce and [had] a strong hand in the company. 1, edited by Eric Arnesen (p. 641-642). From the public record, it seems that brother Anderson does not engage in the truth, but this time he was right on the mark. This has not stopped the UFCW from trying to seize the support group funds, however, which indicates how determined the UFCW is to crush P-9's rebellion. At that point the strikers' numbers and enthusiasm were at a peak, and the "forces of order" could have been taken by surprise. On November 13, 1933, in what historians have suggested was the first officially-recorded sitdown strike in U.S. history, victorious workers at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota ended their labor action three days after it began. Though Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party governor at the time, Floyd Olson, denounced the strikers' "illegal possession of the plant," the company threw in the towel after four days of worker occupation of the plant. Though the negotiations did eventually raise the wage offer to $10 per hour, the company's "final offer" in January still contained a lot of givebacks that would essentially give management the right to do anything it wanted in the plant, and wipe out all the past practices and procedures (e.g. What was achieved, through several decades of struggle, were improved conditions and a national wage standard adhered to by all producers. Only about 65 workers stayed out when pickets showed up at the Fremont, Nebraska plant. The model for American unions came together in the late 1850s. On January 25th the Hormel plant at Ottumwa, Iowa was shut down by a march of hundreds of pickets to the gates. But the company claims it can run the plant with only 1,050 people. His ownership stake in the company made him one of the wealthiest Americans during his lifetime. In the Twin Cities area an informal group of local union officials, rank and file activists, sympathetic academics, revolutionary veterans of the '30s and assorted leftists had become the Metro Support Committee. But in the fall of '83, Hormel decided to take advantage of the concessions fever then sweeping the industry and announced that it was lowering wages in pursuit of the UFCW's "national standard" which had already become a pathetic joke. The International leaders are attempting to set up a "dual union" of the bureaucrats, to replace the real union of P-9 strikers, and negotiate a new constract with Hormel over the heads of the workers. The $20 million in concessions helped to finance Hormel's new $100 million plant in Austin. Petaluma City Council Leaves the Fear and Loathing of the 2020 Campaign Trail Behind, Dear White People – Shopping in the Vicinity of People of Color in Petaluma, About Those Recommendations from the Community Forum on Racism & Interactions with the Petaluma Police Department, Dear White People: A Dress to ImPress Conference – Come Experience Racial Profiling, 2 pm Friday December 18 @ Michael’s in Petaluma, Coup D’Etats May Be French, but the New Booboisie are Native to the USA, Dec. 16, 2005: NYT Publishes ‘Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts’ – 14 Month Late. But many of those in this amorphous "public" are landlords, small store owners, politicians, and others whose class interests are not the same as meatpacking workers. Hormel Foods Corporation is an American company founded in 1891 in Austin, Minnesota, by George A. Hormel as George A. Hormel & Company. On the other hand, when workers are in possession of the plant, the scabs can't be brough in to carry on production. 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