Workers at one of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants have agreed to return to work and halt a three-week strike after plant owner JBS USA agreed to resume negotiations, labor union representatives announced Saturday.
The strike by thousands of workers at the Swift Beef Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado, began on March 16 in coordination with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union.
The strike came as U.S. cattle numbers hit a 75-year-old low this year, a decline driven in part by drought and low prices offered to ranchers. Meanwhile, beef prices have soared to record levels.
The union said in a statement that workers will return to work Tuesday morning after plant owner JBS USA agreed to reopen talks later in the week. Striking workers in Greeley want higher wages and better health care.
“Workers remain united and will continue to fight,” said local union president Kim Cordova in a statement.
JBS USA spokesperson Nikki Richardson said the company is “preparing to resume and ramp up operations at the Greeley plant next week.”
“Our Last, Best and Final offer remains on the table,” Richardson said in an email that did not include terms. “We hope employees will have the opportunity to review and vote on it soon.”
The strike at Greeley is the first strike at a U.S. slaughterhouse since workers walked out at a Hormel plant in Minnesota in 1985. That strike lasted more than a year and included violent confrontations between police and protesters.
JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company with a market capitalization of $17 billion. It is the top employer in Greeley, a city 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Denver with a population of about 114,000 people.
Union officials previously criticized a 2% wage hike as less than inflation.
JBS said its contract offer was consistent with a deal reached with UFCW union workers at other plants. But Cordova says Colorado has a higher cost of living than those other locations, and health care costs ate up much of the wage increase.
The price for 100% ground chuck beef more than doubled over the past two decades from $2.55 to $6.07 per pound, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The increase has added to economic anxiety in the U.S.
