How to Strengthen the Strike

Meatpacking workers in Greeley, Colorado, have stood strong against JBS and refused to return to work without safer working conditions and better wages. Good! Workers deserve everything they are fighting for, beginning with not having to risk their lives and limbs just so JBS can push more beef out the door. The determination of the union ranks forced UFCW Local 7 leaders to extend the strike, which they initially planned to end after two weeks. Now union members have a shot at winning something of value, but only if they go about waging the strike differently from the way union leadership has done so far. Negative publicity alone is not going to get JBS to give in.

Here is what you can do to stop production cold and force JBS to submit to safety demands:

• Elect reps from each language group in the plant and hold meetings on the picket lines to coordinate the fight. Union members are on the picket lines, as they should be. Take the opportunity to organize together. Assign picket captains from among your ranks. Demand union leadership provide interpreters if need be—the union must fight as one fist.

• Send a delegation to get Operating Engineers Local 1 to join the strike. Maintenance workers are not immune from the brutal working conditions in the plant and have much to gain from a joint union fight against JBS. It would be a big boost if they honored the picket lines and stayed off the job. The plant cannot operate without functioning boilers and fridges.

• Urge members of the UFCW and other unions to help build picket lines that stop scabs. The picket lines are sizable but are not organized to block the plant entrance and convince scabs not to cross. Increasing the numbers on the lines would make it possible to do just that, while giving strikers a layer of defense against victimization. Local 7 grocery workers have recently gone on strike against King Soopers. They would clearly benefit from a solid union victory in the struggle against their own bosses. So, too, would the labor movement as a whole in the Denver area and beyond. This includes Teamsters and union railroad workers, many of whom transport product to the massive cold storage facility in nearby Windsor.

• Organize with other UFCW locals to stop the processing of cattle diverted from Greeley. Nearly a dozen UFCW locals have shown up to the picket lines in solidarity. This should be encouraged and built upon. Develop a plan to dispatch union teams to locations where JBS is sending cattle originally bound for Greeley, to get the commitment of those workers to refuse to handle scab product and to sign them up for the union if they are not already members.

• Demand a safe production line speed at all times, and the right of the union to enforce that speed. JBS keeps the line moving at a furious pace and jacks the speed up even more at night, when a lot of Haitians work. This brutal practice must be stopped for everyone’s sake. It is an outrage that JBS slows down the line for USDA inspectors, but not for the workers. Union reps must have the right to shut down the line whenever it moves too fast. A fight for union control would drive home the point that defense of immigrants is crucial to the defense of the unions and help draw both foreign-born and U.S.-born working-class communities into active strike support.