the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Mar 30, 2026
On March 16, 3,800 meat packers, members of UFCW Local 7, struck the Swift Beef Company’s processing plant in Greeley, Colorado. It’s the first major strike in the meatpacking industry since 1985, when workers struck for a full year against Hormel in Minnesota.
The plant is owned by JBS, headquartered in Brazil. JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, with a market value around 17 billion dollars.
The company is sitting pretty right now. Tyson, its competitor, closed a Nebraska plant, taking supply off the market. Consumers have to pay around six dollars a pound for hamburger; double that for whoever can afford steak.
JBS profits in 2025 were around 2 billion dollars, a 14% increase over 2024. The company paid dividends of one dollar per share. The Batista brothers’ group of Brazil holds 536 million of those shares. The Brazil Development Bank holds 200 million shares. BlackRock holds 28 million shares. The workers aren’t paid enough to live on, but shareholders take hundreds of millions!
Workers have to eat too. The Greeley strikers have to cope with a high Colorado cost of living. Add on the company’s healthcare co-pay demands, plus brutal working conditions, plus charging workers for necessary safety equipment like cut-proof gloves. All this pushed the workers into action.
When JBS refused to bargain as required by law, the union called an unfair labor practice strike. Workers approved the strike by 98%, even while ICE vans circled the meeting!
Roughly 90% of the 3,800 union workers are immigrants. The night shift is largely Haitian.
Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7, said: “There’s 50 languages spoken at this plant. And where JBS thinks that they can hire a vulnerable workforce, they do that by design, hoping that workers can’t talk to each other about wages and benefits or working conditions. They’re hoping that we have a division in the plant. But they underestimated their workers. The workers are smart. They’re strong. They’re hard workers. And they deserve dignity, and they deserve respect.”
On March 27, the strike entered its third week.