Aug. 17, 1985 - Sept. 13, 1986
Commemorative edition
Herald file photo
Demonstrators blocked the main entrance to the Hormel plant, a public street and an Interstate 90 exit, with cars and bodies on the morning of April 11, 1985. Tear gas was used to disperse the crowd and 17 felony arrests were made, one being labor strategist Ray Rogers.
wenty-five years ago this of Austin at-large. What follows are reflections on pormonth, P-9 union workers at Hormel voted — by an over- tions of that history, that, while somewhelming 1,261 to 96 margin — to reject the company’s latest contract offer and go on strike. What resulted was a bitter, drawnout labor dispute that drastically impacted the community, from workers who lost jobs to families that were torn apart by picket lines. Today, those impacts can still be seen by looking at the radical changes to Austin Police move in on P-9 strikers during the 1985 Hormel’s workforce — and to the city Hormel strike.
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times painful, are a vital reminder of where this community came from. Such reminders often teach good lessons about where a community can go in the future. We in the paper’s newsroom hope that you take something away from these stories, whether that be a new piece of information, a few tears shed or a new way of looking at old wounds. Of course, discussion is encouraged and desired, and the Herald welcomes any thoughts you may have.
— NOTE: Several quotes in the following section include crude language that, despite having been partially edited, may still be ofensive to some —
‘American Dream’ still rings true today By Mike Rose • Photo by Eric Johnson
Bob Taylor, from left, Olgar Himle, Ken Dalagher and Dave King meet with others who took part in the Hormel strike twice a week at The United Support Group.
P-9 proud, 25 years later Story by Rachel Drewelow • Photos by Eric Johnson Inside the back door of a quiet and unassuming building, near the corner of 10th Street and Fourth Avenue in northeast Austin, one can still hear the rumblings of an era 25 years past. Inside these walls — tacked with newspaper clippings, vintage posters and framed photos — gray-haired men often gather, put the coffee on and talk about the past underneath a mounted white wooden sign that reads in red: “Best Workforce Hormel Ever Had.” This is the meeting place of The United Support Group — a band of defeated ‘P-9ers,’ their wives, children and supporters. These former Hormel meatpackers were among about 1,500 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local P-9, who walked off the job in August of 1985 in response to a looming 23 percent wage cut and unfavorable working conditions. Some of the strike’s veterans and their brethren still meet twice a week to talk about labor issues of the day — refusing to forget their own fight with the same vigor that they protested shrinking pay and plant conditions 25 years ago.
NOTE: Richard Knowlton, who was Hormel’s CEO during the 1985 strike, did not respond to requests to be interviewed for an accompanying article. Requests were fielded by a Hormel Foundation administrative assistant.
P-9ers remember Richard Lee worked for Hormel for about 40 years. He retired on disability shortly after the strike and — sitting with friends in The United Support Group hall earlier this month — he rattled off a list of dangerous jobs he worked in the hog kill. Lee stood in lines pulling leaf lard out of freshly killed hogs, stripping brains from split heads, plucking shards of bone from tissue and pulling pituitary glands to reserve them on dry ice. Lee once sliced his hand — in between his thumb and index finger — clear through tendons and nerves. After six weeks off the job, he returned to have a coworker accidentally nick his arm that very first day back. “It was hard work, bloody work. You needed strong hands,”
Lee said. “But it was good pay — and if you didn’t screw it up, you had a job for life.” That was the consensus among about 10 former Hormel meatpackers who met at The United Support Group clubhouse last week — Austin meatpacking jobs meant difficult but well paid, sought after, stable work in their day. Rex Machacek worked at Hormel for almost 30 years before the strike. Because his father had worked at the plant, he was able to get a job in the business office right out of high school. “You had to know someone to get a job there. Everyone that worked around town would quit their jobs if they could get in at Hormel,” Machacek said. Machacek worked in the office for 12-and-a-half years, all the while vying to move to the packing plant where employees were unionized and the pay was better. “It was a different kind of work, and you had to take what was available,” he said, noting he worked a variety of meatpacking jobs, including flushing chitterlings.
> P-9ERS continues on 4
Barbara Kopple recently received a letter that made her stop and smile. The letter was from Megan Olsen, a 27-year-old Austin woman who had watched Kopple’s 1990 Academy Award winner “American Dream,” the documentary that chronicles the 1985 Hormel strike. Olsen wrote that she was 2 years old when her father went on strike and could remember virtually nothing about it. However, after watching the film — first by herself, then with family members — Olsen said she learned a great deal about her own history. “Without ‘American Dream,’” she wrote in her letter, “I may never have known my parents as well as I do now.” Clearly, the 20-year-old documentary has stood the test of time and today still serves as a sobering reminder of what a labor dispute can do to a community. The film follows the build-up of the strike, starting in 1984 as negotiations begin to fall apart and union workers start canvassing for support. From there, Kopple follows several different storylines as the situation develops over the coming months. There are the hard-line P-9 union workers, who push vigorously for the strike and stick with it even as Hormel brings in replacement workers. There are the company executives, who maintain that their wage offers are fair. There are those with the international meatpacking union who, despite being in favor of better labor rights for packers, don’t agree with A movie poster for the docthe tactics of the strikers umentary of the Hormel and come to an impasse strike, signed by director with the Austin Barbara Kopple, hangs in organizers. And then there the building where The are the “P-10ers,” the United Suppor t Group nickname for workers who meets. initially go on strike but succumb to the need to make money and put food on the table — at the cost of alienating themselves from friends and family still on the picket line. Through it all, Kopple said she strived not to make any one side look right or wrong, but tried to capture all sides of the story and let the viewers decide who were the good guys and bad guys. “I cared about the people in Austin, Minn., very much,” the filmmaker said of the union workers she got to know so well. “But if we were ever to look back at (the film), we had to have the full story.” Kopple’s desire to follow that story began in the early 1980s, as she became more and more engrossed with what was going on economically in the working world. At the time, meatpacking plants across the country were struggling, with many slashing wages, shutting down, or going through bitter labor situations. As this environment grew, workers in Austin started to take a critical look at a wage proposal that would have slashed pay by $2 an hour.
> DREAM continues on 3
Look inside for: A timeline of the strike — A sheriff looks back — What was it like covering the strike?