The P9 Strike completes the first three songs of the album, telling the story of how, while the Farm Crisis and Rust Belting processes were going on, corporate attacks by labor- enabled and abetted by entrenched bureaucracies in many of our unions- defeated workers' attempts to fight back and save some of post-WW2 social contract that had been struck between management and labor. The 1980s were a time of capitalist counter-attack against workers' gains; the end of the era of labor peace. Since then, capitalists have been advancing a steady class war against us.
The workers at Local P9 of the UFCW in Austin MN worked at the slaughterhouses of Hormel. The town had a history of radical unionism, stretching back to the Independent Union of All Workers, a local remnant/breakaway of the IWW that had organized towns in southern Minnesota wall-to-wall, until the intervention of the Farmer-Labor Party in a major strike in Albert Lea broke up the IUAW and divided their members among different AFL unions.
By the 1980s, the workers in Austin were ready to strike against a two-tier system that screwed over newer workers by imposing most of the concessions in bargaining onto them. They were also rebelling against unsafe line speeds that left workers maimed. When they went on strike, however, the broader UFCW leadership did not support them, and forbade other locals from joining the strike- while the company shifted production to the other slaughterhouses, and brought in scabs to Austin. The bosses couldn't beat the P9 workers and their supporters, though- until the UFCW heads put the local into trusteeship and broke the strike themselves, to resume having a cooperative "partnership" with Hormel bosses.
Hard Pressed in the Heartland by Peter Rachleff is a great resource on the P9 strike.
lyrics
Bm D
Came back to Austin after the war, been on the line since ‘74,
A Bm
working on the killing floor, to make Hormel its spam
Every year the line gets quicker, dollar’s cheaper, talk gets slicker
Some guys numb themselves with liquor, or learn not to give a damn
Hormel always says they’re squeezed, and the contract’s not a charity
They’re paying half your wage at IBD, and we’re steady losing ground
They wants cuts, so the bureaucrats dump it on the new hire’s backs
Sign or we’ll give your plant the sack, and gut this company town
Chorus
G D
Hard knocks on the killing floor taught us how to swing
A Bm
We ain’t beat even when we’re beaten down
And you best not pull your punches when you’re comin’ for the king
and you’re fighting for your life in a company town
The new plant was a slaughterhouse, for the pigs and workers both,
Contract gave us no way out, but hit them in the papers
and put their dirty flows of cash, in the magnifying glass,
Til the contract day was passed, and we took back our labor
On the day we stopped their line, they moved the slaughter and assigned
The other locals overtime, to scab against their brothers
If we let them do it, then they’ve won- we have to shut it down as one
But national said we’d go alone, no calling in the others
Chorus
When they brought the scabs, that winter day, we blocked them at the factory gate
And it took more cops to clear the way, then they had in the whole station
So Perpich played his favorite card, calling in the National Guard
and you have to fight back twice as hard, when you’re under occupation
We hit the road to spread the strain, up and down the Hormel chain
And other towns joined the campaign, even if it meant the black list
A strike’s a race to see who’ll last, between your belly and the boss’s cash
But the checks came in for food and gas, to get the kids their breakfast
Chorus
March stormed in with the picket clash, and the Austin streets were choked in gas
But cops and soldiers couldn’t smash, the spirit of P-9
But the national union bent the knee, to get peace with the company
Put the local into trusteeship, to bust our picket line
They put the scabs in the union hall, even stripped our mural off the wall,
And when the end of the strike was called, sold out a generation
Now old King Pork still wears the crown, to beat the packing worker down
It’s hard times in a company town, hard times in a boss’s nation
Emmett is a working class rebel musician- a union carpenter, former river deckhand, raised on a farm in central Minnesota.
With American country and blues and Irish traditional roots, he keeps the Long Memory going while singing about today's struggles. His work is rooted in social movements he's an active part of, from labor to defending the earth to fighting hate....more
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