SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Tension intensified at the giant Smithfield slaughterhouse where workers have rejected the company’s union contract offer. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is taking a strike authorization vote Monday. The union said the Smithfield offer was rejected 99:1. Among issues for the union:
> A $19-an-hour base wage, to match a JBS pork plant 70 miles in Worthington, Minnesota.
> Ending one of two 15-minute breaks for workers on short shifts.
Keira Lombardo, a Smithfield spokesperson, called the strike vote “expected and routine” in the negotiation process. In an analysis, Associated Press reporter Stephen Groves said the Smithfield stand-off is “a sign of meatpacking workers becoming emboldened by the pandemic’s health threats and economic repercussions. Groves noted:
> Nearly 1,300 workers were infected by Covid and four died in April 2020. The company was faulted by federal inspectors for workplace safety violations.
> The wage gap is narrowing between meatpackers and employees at fast-food and retail chains. Meatpackers wages and salaries industrywide start at $22.
“Through the pandemic, workers have organized around pushes for workplace safety and are now navigating an economy where some slaughterhouses, desperate for employees, have suddenly boosted wages,” Groves said.
Pay and working conditions as labor issues. The Sioux Falls plant, with 2,000 employees, provides about 5% of the nation’s pork.
