Episodes
Wednesday Aug 17, 2016
August 17 The Era Wage Cuts and Job Loss
Wednesday Aug 17, 2016
Wednesday Aug 17, 2016
On this day in Labor History the year was 1985.
That was the day that workers at the Hormel plant in Austin,
Minnesota went out on strike.
They were members of the United Food and Commercial Workers
Union Local P-9.
Hormel had slashed workers’ wages by twenty-three percent
during the early 1980s.
Benefits were also diminished and incentive programs rolled
back.
These changes cut deeply into the Hormel workers’ earnings.
What had been considered a good job was changing
drastically.
This was the story for many workers in Regan-Era America.
The 3,500 Hormel workers voted overwhelmingly to
strike.
The national UFCW discouraged the action.
The strike lasted more than a year.
Strikebreakers were brought in, including some of the union
members who crossed the picket line to return to work.
The National Guard was called in to keep the peace between
strikers and scabs.
After a year, the strike went down in defeat.
Even after the strike, many were not called back to
work.
They were put on waiting lists for a job to reopen.
Some never returned to the plant.
Twenty-five years after the strike the Austin Daily Herald staff wrote, “What resulted was a bitter,
drawn-out labor dispute that drastically impacted the community, from workers
who lost jobs to families that were torn apart by picket lines.”
The strike became the feature of a documentary by Barbara
Kopple.
In 1990 the documentary, “American Dream” won the Academy
Award. The
film tells the story of the Hormel strike as a window into
the tragic experiences of many workers in during the 1980s.
The film was made on a shoestring budget.
Singer Bruce Springsteen provided $25,000 to help support
this important film.
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