(ABC 6 News) – The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has announced that workers at Hormel’s meatpacking plants have voted to ratify their recently negotiated contract.
The announcement came just six days after UFCW Local 663 union leaders reached a tentative agreement with Hormel, and just over a month after rejecting the company’s “final offer”; which the union described at the time as “not good enough”.
“Our members who work at Hormel Foods locations in Minnesota, Georgia, Wisconsin and Iowa voted today to ratify a contract that includes the largest wage increase in the company’s history,” said UFCW International President Marc Perrone, “In addition to gaining hourly wage increases of $3-$6 an hour, the new contract nearly doubles bereavement leave, protects healthcare coverage, and increases both pension and 401k benefits.”
For more than a month, union leaders pressed Hormel for a better offer, stating that the company’s profits reached over $2 billion in 2022 and called on them to fairly share those profits with the workers who keep their plants running.
Although the terms of the new contract have not yet been announced, according to Perrone’s statement, it appears as if the union was largely successful in their efforts to push for higher wages, increased benefits, and secure pensions.
The news is welcome for the city of Austin, who hosts the largest number of Hormel plant workers across the country at roughly 1,700. It also dissolves any prospect of a strike.
The newly ratified contract will be in effect for the next four years.
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