DODGE CITY, Kansas – The United Food and Commercial Workers gained its second big union recognition election win at a meatpacker in two weeks on Nov. 4, just before the union and an international union federation met to discuss the impact of increasing concentration of the retail grocery industry into just a few megafirms.
The win, at National Beef’s slaughter and processing plant in Dodge City, Kansas, will bring an estimated 2,500 more workers into UFCW District Local 2. They’ll join other workers the local already represents at an area Cargill plant.
“We know that workers at Cargill, just down the street, have had a contract with Local 2 for many years -– and that means they always had a say in their wages, benefits and working conditions,” Ramon Prieto, who works on the kill floor at National Beef, told UFCW. Prieto helped lead the organizing drive at National.
“That’s why I voted to join the UFCW, so that we all will have a chance to negotiate benefits and salaries, job security, and a better life for our families,” he added.
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