When Deborah Rodarte arrives for her shift at the Swift Beef Co. plant outside Greeley, Colorado, owned by JBS USA, the first thing she does is gear up. Donning a hard hat and protective equipment, including a layer of metal mesh meant to keep knives from cutting through to the skin, she heads to the line and waits for the cattle to start coming down the chain.
Rodarte spends her shift trimming fat from cuts of beef as they move past her station. “It’s quick motion all day, every day,” she said. “One after another after another.” The job, she added, is hard on the body. “You’re trimming a piece of meat, taking all the fat, and when you’re done you throw it on top, and the next one is already there.”
Now Rodarte and roughly 3,800 of her coworkers — members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 — are on strike after months of negotiations over wages, health insurance costs, and working conditions. It’s the largest strike in the meatpacking industry in decades, and the first ever at the Greeley plant, which accounts for around 5 percent of the US beef-processing capacity. JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company.
The dispute at one of the largest meatpacking plants in the United States has been brewing since last summer, when the plant’s contract expired. Workers stayed on the job under a temporary extension while negotiations continued, but the union ended that extension earlier this month, clearing the way for a strike that could begin March 16. Union officials say the company has offered wage increases averaging less than 2 percent a year while shifting rising health insurance costs onto workers and continuing to charge employees as much as $1,100 for replacement protective equipment used on the job.
“Let’s say you’re been working for a year, and the PPE [personal protective equipment] has normal wear and tear,” explained Rodarte. “We have had them charge other employees for a brand new set of PPE when…
Auteur: Alex N. Press
