@ban nock We had a national contract with Swift, Armour, Hormel and several other companies until the 1980s. The first breach in our national standard came in the late 70s when Iowa Beef Processors refused to agree to the national terms paid by its unionized competitors. I was directly involved in the Hormel strike of 1985-6, as Hormel in Austin, Minnesota offered nothing but pay cuts.

The 1985–1986 Hormel strike was a labor strike that involved approximately 1,500 workers of the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota in the United States. The strike, beginning August 17, 1985 and lasting until September 13 of the following year, is considered one of the longest strikes in Minnesota history and ended in failure for the striking workers.

Hormel is an American meat processing company founded in 1891 that has both their headquarters and primary facility in Austin. Workers at this plant organized in 1929 and, following some initial strike activity, enjoyed a relatively good relationship with plant management. However, the relationship between the union and management had become more hostile by the 1970s, and in 1975, Hormel announced that they would be replacing the Austin plant with a new facility. In light of this, the union (Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)) agreed to a new labor contract that included several major concessions from the union. Following the new plant's opening in 1982, employees experienced an increase in injuries caused by the conditions at the plant, and in 1984, Hormel introduced a pay cut. Following this, Local P-9 hired labor activist Ray Rogers and began a corporate campaign against Hormel to pressure them into negotiating a new contract with the union. On August 17, 1985, Local P-9 authorized strike action against Hormel, which was hesitantly approved by UFCW.

Wiki does not relate how grim the dispute between the strikers and the union officialdom was. I got involved as a lawyer representing local P-9. I had recently been fired from my job as General Counsel of UFCW Local 540 in Dallas. (I sued the International Union and eventually settled for $115,000.)

We gained massive media coverage and the strike was the subject of several books and the Oscar winning documentary film called American Dream. I appear in that movie for two small passages.

We also raised a huge amount of hell with the "pork choppers" running our union and most of the other major unions as we contended that this was the turning point for the Labor Movement. We were right, as the American labor movement was unilaterally disarming itself and sending our own members into low wage hell, while we kept paying ourselves ever increasing executive level wages.

The Democrats -- and the Republicans for that matter -- had absolutely nothing to do with our cowardly abandonment of union militance. It was applied neo-liberalism as our highest paid leaders maximized their income while minimizing the expense of fighting for our members' livelihoods.

Thanks for posting on my thread.

meat cutters union.

It paid well enough so they had 2 cars, sent his 3 daughters to college, and had a vacation shack on the upper peninsula. Health care, pension.

Now none of that. Meatpacking brought in scabs from the south. Those of you who are Democrats supported it. Even if you aren't Democrats there's a real good chance you support it. Unions support it.