Storms start to move out of Minnesota, continue for western Wisconsin

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Union workers at the JBS pork processing plant in Worthington this week ratified a new contract, which they say addresses critical safety concerns on the production line. 

The employees, represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, raised concerns about faster line speeds as part of contract negotiations with the company, after the Trump administration announced it would allow pork and poultry slaughterhouses to speed up production.

The JBS plant in Worthington already processes more than 1,000 hogs an hour, as workers must quickly slice the animals into different cuts of meat on several production lines, and workers there fear that increasing line speeds would lead to more serious injuries in what is already dangerous work.   

According to UFCW 663, the contract includes joint union-employer training for union stewards and company representatives to accurately time and monitor the production line. Union president Rena Wong said these measures allow workers to ensure that line speeds remain within safe limits. 

Wong added that workers will now feel assured that they can also inspect cuts of meat as they’re being processed and flag possible issues while working the line. 

“They have agency over being able to bring up when there are issues on the line,” Wong said. “Which is good for worker safety, but it’s also good for consumer safety.”

In April, as contract talks stalled, union members marched outside the JBS plant in Worthington demanding more safety training and other measures to protect line workers. They also negotiated for higher wages and better benefits. 

Workers at this Minnesota meat processing plant and others say they frequently suffer injuries, especially when line speeds increase. The most common are repetitive stress injuries to joints, ligaments and nerves, conditions caused by making the same body movements repeatedly over a period of time. 

“Having all union stewards receive line speed training is very important,” Brenda Quijano, a plant worker who served on the bargaining committee, said in a statement. “When we can regulate the line speed, it means fewer injuries for us — especially given the four years ahead with Trump weakening our line speed protections. We’ve improved our own ability to protect ourselves.”

Officials from the National Pork Producers Council disagree that faster line speeds increase injury risk, pointing to a recent USDA study on meat plant safety that found no direct link between worker injuries and faster line speeds. 

However, the study did show that a higher “piece rate” did correlate with injuries. 

Contract also includes higher pay and new pension plan

Under the new agreement, the JBS plant’s union workers will get pay raises of $1.20 per hour  over the three year life of the agreement. That’s 40 cents an hour per year, but it puts the JBS Worthington meat processing workers on par with what workers at other JBS facilities around the country earn, according to Wong. JBS Worthington plant workers start earning a base pay rate of $21 an hour, but can earn more in certain job classifications.

The new contract also gives workers a new option for saving money for retirement — a Variable Annuity Pension Plan — in addition to having the choice of remaining in  the current 401 (k) plan. 

“We won the right for each worker to choose their retirement plan,” Quijano said. “Many people want to keep their 401(k), and others prefer the stability of a pension. That choice should be ours — and now it is.”

The contract also includes improvements to the attendance policy, allowing workers more flexibility to take time off for a family illness or other unexpected emergency. 

“The change in the attendance policy gives me more breathing room and makes me less anxious that I will lose my job for taking care of my family,” plant worker Nyawargak Jack said in a union press release.

In addition, the new contract will maintain employees’ health care coverage.

“They have health care benefits through JBS and that is going to continue,” Wong said, adding that the company and the union plan to meet later in the year “to talk about how we move forward in partnership, figure out how to contain costs, because health care costs go up every year.”

In comparison to non-unionized food processing plants, Wong contends union-represented workers tend to make more money, and she hopes this contract sets a standard for higher wages for workers across  the food processing industry.

But she added that the main priority was to prioritize workers’ safety.

“That is why we think it is so important that we were able to win this training for all stewards,” Wong said. “To be able to learn how to time the speed of the line, understanding the crewing that is necessary, and then being able to raise those concerns with supervisors in a productive way, to be able to enforce that so our members stay safe, and so that the product that comes out of this plant is also extra safe for our consumers.”

Hannah Yang

Author

Union workers at the JBS pork processing plant in Worthington this week ratified a new contract, which they say addresses critical safety concerns on the production line. 



Meat plant workers in Worthington win safety improvements in new contract

Go Deeper.

Like this?