Iowa Smithfield Foods Workers Ratify New Contract

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1142 has announced that nearly 1,000 workers represented by the union voted to ratify a new contract with Smithfield Foods at the company’s John Morrell plant in Sioux City, Iowa. The four- and a half-year agreement delivers wage increases and maintains affordable health care.

The new contract establishes wage increases, including $1.50 per hour base wage increase over the life of the contract for production workers and $1.65 per hour base wage increase for maintenance workers. It maintains affordable health care, with no co-premium increases in the first or last half year of the contract.

Weekly increases of $1.50 for individual and $3 for family coverage are triggered in years two, three and four of the contract. The contract also maintains pension security, increases sick pay and improves working conditions.

Warren Baker, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1142, said: “We’ve been at the bargaining table since last October. The negotiations were contentious. There’s always give and take, but, in the end, we arrived at a fair settlement.”