Case Study : The Packers Strike

Years after the strike at Hormel meat packing plant had divided the town of Austin, some parts of the community are still angry (Galbally, 2004). The fact that union members was left to largely defend for themselves after the UFCW removed the Local P-9 leaders, demonstrated that a local can`t strike against a company by itself (Warren,

To grasp the future of work one must watch the film of Sergio Kirby and Lixin Fan to obtain a firm knowledge of the future of work in order to improve upon it. Sergio Kirby’s Wal-Town: The Film is a 66 minute documentary filmed in Canada that seeks to raise public awareness on the negative impacts that Walmart introduces in small town Canadian communities. The documentary includes six university activists attempting to put an end to Walmart’s negative impacts by trekking a journey of public awareness across the various Walmart’s in Canada .The students conclude that Walmart negatively impacts small communities by forcing citizens to become consumers, denying unionization, and closing small business in the local areas. The film gathers

Organized labor in Canada is now surviving and not thriving as in the past. With the decline in trade unions, workers are now facing a hostile social and cultural climate which is increasingly anti-union and it is driven by the interest of the employers (McCormick & Hyman 2013). Data from Statistics

Broadway, Michael; Cut to the Bone; How changes in meatpacking have created the most vulnerable worker in Alberta; Published in Vol 15, No 4, May 2012, pgs 36-41. Retrieved from

Two years ago the United Steel Workers organized the 400 workers at Maple Grove Foods, a food processing company in Western Ontario. Previously the company had been in operation for over thirty years as a non-union shop. Management had tried to convince employees not to join the union. The employees were paid quite well, in the view of the company.

“While a myriad of laws exist at the state and federal level to protect undocumented workers from exploitation, discrimination and abuse, enforcement is often lax and many in the legal community have turned a blind eye, or worse, have watched undisturbed while their clients commit crimes against humanity” (Lazar). The problem does not reside in the lack of laws that protect undocumented workers, but the lack of willingness from the government to enforce these policies in the everyday workplace. “The current movement of non-profit worker centers across the country—empowering immigrant workers to defend their employment rights and recover their dignity in the workplace—is a vital sign of progress. But it must be complemented with a real commitment from the public and private sector to protect the rights of all workers” (Workplace Fairness). Workers from the Tracy, California factory decided to take things in their own hands, they organized multiple protests against Taylor Farms, they set up a Teamsters accounts, and have also created an Appeal for Justice to inform the CEO of Taylor Farms, Bruce Church Taylor, of the unjust conditions that the workers suffer

Many rural workers, desperate for the insignificant waged provided in an industry that only union-organized by the largely ineffective and compliant United Food and Commercial Workers had a couple months before workers were burned out by the rapid pace and injurious work environment. Fink, who only worked for four months at Perry’s IBP plant, lasted longer than many of her coworkers. Since 1960, increased employment of nonwhites changed for the meatpacking industry. In Perry’s IBP plant in the early 1990’s, Fink explains that about one-third of the rural workers were Latino, about one-tenth were black, and lastly the other one-tenth Asian. The majority of these workers were not

In Wayne Roberts and John Bullen’s A Heritage of Hope and Struggle: Workers, Unions and Politics of Canada 1930-1982, Roberts and Bullen’s outline the struggles and hardships Canadians endure post WWII on their path to prosperity with their employers. The journey begins late 1940s; conflicts emerge regarding union security which results in strikes, the 1945 Ford Windsor strike occurs as the organization’s employees demand the stability of the union. In an attempt to resolve the issues, Justice Ivan Rand urges a formula to “check-off dues” from employee paycheques to invest in the union, regarding finances and its activities. The fifties include the creation of the Canadian Labor Congress 1956 and the New Democratic Party. The sixties introduce

The issues and events examined in these two essays provide a fair and thoughtful discussion of processes that have led to diminished workplace rights among the women and migrant and immigrant workers in Canada. The decisive role in the development of long-term strategies as wage solidarity, the operation

Before the 1930s, labor unions had little to no voice in the contracts of industrialized companies. Labor Unions “are organizations of workers whose primary objectives are to improve the pecuniary and nonpecuniary conditions or employment among their members” (Ehrenberg & Smith, pg. 451). The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) and the United Automobiles Workers (UAW) are different unions in Canada and the Unites States. Even though they have some similarities, the two groups have many differences as well. Some similarities include how they bargain and negotiate. However, they differ in the type of union, what they stand for, how large they are, why and when they started, and what they negotiate for.

GMFC and Local 384 have been unsuccessful in negotiations and the current contract has just expired. This impasse has caused the first lapse of contract between the organization and the union in fifteen years. It is imperative to both the health of the company and to the job security of the employees to resolve these negotiations quickly. In order to move forward we must fully understand and evaluate the positions of both Local 384, and GMFC. What are the major barriers stopping us from reaching an agreement and what are the underlying issues to these barriers? We must fully evaluate the issues in order to

Sinclair describes the power structure within the meatpacking industry as, ”the Beef Trust … was the incarnation of blind and insensate Greed. It was a monster devouring with a thousand mouths, trampling with a thousand hoofs; it was the Great Butcher-it was the spirit of Capitalism made flesh. (Sinclair,137)” Through this metaphor Sinclair illustrates the unsanitary, unsafe, and merciless conditions the workers of the meatpacking industry were subjected to both on the job and in every other aspect of their daily lives. All while the upper class spends enormous amounts of money without taking in to consideration the miserable lives the lower classes are forced to live. In The Communist Manifesto Marx states, “No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so thus far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. (Marx, 18)” In essence, the capitalistic power structure not only exploits the proletariat in the work environment but also in every other financial aspect possible including securing basic needs like housing, food and clothing and no where is this more apparent than in the town surrounding the meatpacking plants of

Olsson uses the story of Jennifer McLaughlin, a twenty-two year old mother that works at a Wal-Mart in Paris, Texas. Jennifer describes many examples of mistreatment from being given too many tasks for one person, being underpaid, and having to opt out of health coverage to support her young son. “After three years with the company, McLaughlin only earns $16,800 a year. “And I’m considered high-paid...you cannot make it by yourself without having a second job or someone to help you”.(Olsson 607) Jennifer’s boyfriend Eric Jackson was the first person to talk about starting a union in Paris, Texas. He originally wanted to work for a factory like his mother did but since they only accepted 350 people out of the 22,000 in the local workforce, he had to settle for Wal-Mart where he was working higher positions for the same starting pay of $5.75 an hour. Once Jackson started pushing for a union, the company quickly responded with anti-unionizing tactics. At one of the anti-union meetings, Jennifer stated that she used to have epilepsy, but since her father was in the union, he had proper insurance that had her recover. She pointed out that she does not have insurance and if her son were to get epilepsy, what would she do? “ “Doesn’t a union help help you to get paid company-paid insurance?” The man as she recalls, became flustered. “Jennifer, I don’t have an answer about that… I’ll have to get back to you,” (Olsson

After the confederation, Canada went through numerous progressions; some were positively effective but some were negatively influenced the working-class citizens. Every people in different societal strata have its own way of surviving. Paige Railbmon explains the Aboriginal people’s lives, Bettina Bradbury describes non-wage based workers’ surviving strategies, and Craig Heron introduces the union labors’ lives. In this paper, I analyzed my assessment of these three articles and some evoked questions.

With scholars such as Kerry L. Preibisch (The Other Side of el Otro Lado: Mexican Migrant Women and Labor Flexibility in Canadian Agriculture), Ronaldo Munck (Globalization, Migration and Work: Issues and Perspectives), and Parrenas R. S. (Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work) all argue that the power the employer has in selecting which migrant workers they want based on nationality or sex. In turn, has created a competition among the labor-supply of countries. And between the workers themselves based on social hierarchy, which both race and gender are prominent. However, these articles perspectives have not adequately addressed the issue of the relationship between how labour migration and the current economic policy in effect by the Canadian government the CSAWP has on migrant workers. My paper addresses the issue of migrant’s workers face in the agricultural sector in Ontario but with particular attention with regards to the recent changes in economic policies set by the Canadian government. Specifically, in my paper, I will be looking at the challenges of migrating to Canada, and the lack of fundamental rights of becoming a Canadian citizen, to show the difficulties that migrants face of being less mobile today than in the past. I will discuss the power that employers have the choice of picking the migrant worker that they want in Canada. The type of labour mobility they have within the workforce in Canada and juxtapose them against the current economic policies enforced by the Canadian Government to reveal the previously misunderstood connections between migrant workers and the challenges they face on a daily