Parent Union Tells Hormel Local to End Strike

WASHINGTON — The parent union of 1,000 striking Hormel meatpackers in Minnesota cut off their strike benefits Friday and ordered leaders of the renegade local to end the 7-month-old walkout.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union lifted its sanction of the strike at Geo. A. Hormel & Co.’s pork processing plant at Austin, Minn., and said it would seek direct negotiations with the company on a new contract, bypassing the leadership of its dissident P-9 local.

“I officially called off the strike,” union President William Wynn said at a news conference. “Many more jobs could be lost if the strike is not ended.”

James Guyette, the president of the P-9 local in Austin, was in New York City for a labor rally Friday night and said in a telephone interview that he was unsure of the legal status of the strike in the wake of the international union’s action. He said he had not yet had an opportunity to meet with the local’s attorneys.

For more than 18 months, the parent union and its P-9 local have been engaged in one of the most bitter intramural fights in the labor movement in several years over concessionary contracts in the meatpacking industry.

Local P-9 refused to grant concessions agreed to by other locals and chose instead to strike, saying the time had come to end wage and benefit concessions in the industry.

Wynn said the union would seek on behalf of the Austin workers the same basic $10-per-hour contract that the union negotiated on behalf of 4,500 of its members at other Hormel plants.

Meanwhile, about 500 union members at other Hormel plants in Ottumwa, Iowa; Fremont, Neb., and Dallas have been terminated by the company after refusing to cross roving picket lines set up by the P-9 strikers.

Hormel officials had no immediate reaction to the union developments Friday.