In the mid-1980s, members of United Food & Commercial Workers Local P-9 were in the forefront of efforts to stop the wave of concessions that swept through workplaces. Their strike against the Hormel Corp. in Austin, Minn., became a symbol of resistance ? and of the contradictions within the labor movement.

Twenty years later, strikers, their families and supporters reflected on the experience at programs in Austin and St. Paul. The world is a different place, they said, but the landscape for working people hasn't changed much.

"If anyone wants to know why we went on strike in Austin ? all you have to do is look at Northwest Airlines," said Pete Winkels, business agent for Local P-9 in 1985 and 1986, speaking at the Aug. 22 program sponsored by the St. Paul Labor Speakers Club.

"We went on strike to preserve what we had," he said. "Northwest is no different now" with 4,400 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association on the picketline to preserve jobs, wages and benefits.

Striking members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association at Northwest Airlines joined former Local P-9 strikers at a commemorative program Monday.

In July 1985, Hormel demanded that the 1,700 workers at the Austin plant take wage and benefit concessions, gut the grievance and seniority provisions of the contract and accept a contract expiration date that would put the local out of sync with other Hormel locals. Equally important for union members was the company's failure to address safety concerns at the three-year-old hog slaughter and pork processing facility, built to replace a decades-old plant.

Despite indications that the UFCW international union was not fully supportive, Local P-9 went on strike Aug.17, 1985. The walkout lasted until Sept. 13, 1986, when UFCW Regional Director Joe Hansen (now UFCW president) signed a contract with Hormel essentially agreeing to all the company's demands.

Years later, animosity is still strong between the strikers and the scabs who crossed the picketline ? and many people still boycott Hormel products, adhering to the strikers' slogan "Cram your Spam." Anger remains over Gov. Rudy Perpich's decision to call in the National Guard to allow the company to keep operating with replacements and the international union's action to replace local officers and put P-9 in trusteeship.

Local P-9 President Jim Guyette, who along with consultant Ray Rogers pioneered a "corporate campaign" strategy to attack Hormel during the strike, was not able to attend the St. Paul commemoration, but did join the Austin commemoration.

"The problem was, we could have beat the company without the international's interference," he told the crowd, before receiving a standing ovation, the Austin Daily Herald reported. Guyette left Austin after the strike and has been a union organizer in Michigan and New York.

Some bitterness also surfaced at the St. Paul commemoration, but speakers said they preferred to focus on the solidarity shown by the P-9 United Support Group and people across the country and the lessons of the strike.

"We didn't win the strike, but like I've told people before, we didn't lose the strike either," said Winkels. "The community lost the strike and it was forever changed."

Good-paying jobs in the meatpacking industry that once sustained communities like Austin have given way to dangerous, low-paying jobs that attract a transient workforce and do nothing to build the small towns where they are located, Winkels said.

Retired Steelworker Dennis Jones performed some of the same songs he sang with picketers 20 years ago.

During the 1985-86 strike, Dale Chidester walked off the job at the Ottumwa, Iowa, Hormel plant in sympathy with the Austin strikers. When the plant was closed some years later, he transferred to the Austin plant, where he is now a member of UFCW Local 9.

"Throughout history, we've always had to fight the same fights," he told the overflow crowd at the St. Paul program. "It's when working people stick together that we've ever made any gains."

One change he noted over the past 20 years is the increasingly international nature of the labor movement. Under globalization, workers in Austin have a lot in common with workers elsewhere in the world.

"I'm a worker. I'm a worker whether I work in Austin or St. Paul or Mexico City or somewhere in El Salvador," Chidester stated. "We're all workers."

He urged people to tell the story of Local P-9 and other labor struggles to the next generation. "If we don't teach them, who will?" he asked.