Hormel Strike Broken Through Permanent Replacement, Ending Pattern Bargaining in Meatpacking

United Food and Commercial Workers Local P-9 workers at Hormel’s flagship Austin, Minnesota plant strike against wage cuts from $10.69 to $8.25 per hour, seeking to maintain the meatpacking industry’s traditional “pattern bargaining” where major companies matched union wage standards. Hormel provokes the strike deliberately, then hires permanent replacement workers to maintain production, following the Phelps Dodge template and Reagan’s PATCO precedent that striker replacement is an acceptable management tactic.

After months of militant picketing and national solidarity campaigns, Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich deploys the National Guard to protect replacement workers crossing picket lines, providing state power to enforce corporate strike-breaking. The strike is ultimately defeated in 1986 when replacement workers decertify the union, strikers lose their jobs permanently, and Hormel’s wage cuts become the new industry standard. The defeat destroys pattern bargaining in meatpacking—the practice of setting uniform wages across major producers—enabling a race to the bottom in working conditions and compensation.

The Hormel strike represents the high-water mark of 1980s labor militancy and its decisive defeat: despite unprecedented solidarity from other unions, creative corporate campaigns, and nationwide publicity, permanent striker replacement proves insurmountable when backed by state police power and NLRB’s refusal to prevent replacement hiring. The loss contributes directly to the collapse in major strikes from 300 annually (pre-PATCO) to 16 annually by the 2010s, as workers recognize that even the most militant and well-organized strikes cannot overcome the legal architecture enabling permanent replacement combined with toothless NLRB enforcement and state violence protecting scabs.