More than 3,000 union workers on the high plains of Colorado walked off the job this week from one of the largest meatpacking plants in the country, hoping to use cracks in President Trump’s economy to win higher wages and better working conditions.
The workers at the JBS plant in Greeley, Colo., staging the country’s first meatpacking strike in 40 years, say their pay for grueling, dangerous jobs has not kept pace with the soaring cost of living. They can no longer afford the steaks and briskets that they slice and pack during shifts that leave their shoulders aching, some said.
“We eat ramen,” Anthony Martinez, 57, said. He has cut back to pay his rising $2,200 rent and school costs for his two teenagers. “I do all this meat cutting, and we do not have meat in the freezer.”
So on Monday, a union made up largely of immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa made good on an earlier strike vote, with beef prices already up 20 percent over the past year and labor markets tightening amid immigration sweeps. Union members called it a matter of survival as hourly workers providing meat to an increasingly unequal and unaffordable America.
“This is a long time coming,” said Kim Cordova, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, the union representing the striking workers.
The strike has so far not affected the price of a burger, labor experts said this week, but if it drags on, supply disruptions could make high beef prices even higher as cattle are trucked to faraway slaughterhouses or languish in feed lots.
Any additional increases could become a political liability for Mr. Trump and Republicans who control Congress as they face midterm voters angry about the cost of living and prices driven higher by the war with Iran.
Nikki Richardson, a spokeswoman the American branch of JBS, a Brazil-based conglomerate, said the union rejected a contract that offered “higher wages, a secure pension and long‑term financial stability.”
Hundreds of employees were still showing up in Greeley, she added, and JBS was shifting beef production to other plants with spare capacity. Many workers in Greeley are nonunion.
“Our goal is to minimize impact to our customers, our partners and the broader marketplace while we work toward a fair resolution,” Ms. Richardson said in an email.
With nearly 4,000 workers, the plant is the largest employer in Greeley and a magnet for immigrants from Haiti, Guatemala, Myanmar, Benin and dozens of other countries. It draws multiple generations and extended families.
Typically in three shifts from dawn through dark, the employees put on color-coded helmets and stream into the sprawling plant where 5,000 to 6,000 cattle are slaughtered and processed every day.
“They’re always hiring,” Adrian Melendez, 30, a plant worker said. “It’s hard labor.”
But this week, hundreds of workers instead met at a park near the plant, picked up signs urging people not to buy JBS meats and fanned out along the sidewalks.
Carrying portable speakers, the workers danced and sang to Dominican bachata, Mexican Norteño, pop songs from the island nation of Vanuatu and rhythmic Haitian compas. They snacked on burritos, doughnuts and wheel-shaped Mexican duritos.
They chanted: “Respect us, protect us, pay what you owe us!”
The strike in Greeley, a fast-growing city of 110,000 about 60 miles northeast of Denver powered by ranching and oil production, is happening in one of the most competitive House districts in the country. Representative Gabe Evans, a Republican former Army captain and ardent Trump supporter, unseated a Democrat there in the 2024 elections.
Democrats hoping to retake it have seized on the strike as a feedlot David-and-Goliath struggle. They argue that Republicans have turned their back on the blue-collar workers who helped elect them and are criticizing Mr. Evans for his absence from the picket lines.
Mr. Evans did not respond to a request for comment.
In interviews, employees said they cared more about their pay than politics. Many said they had not voted in years or were not eligible because they are not citizens.
They pointed to their own bodies to make the case for raises and better working conditions. One woman flexed a finger that no longer bends properly because of overuse on the job. Another rolled up her sleeve to show the scar from where she said she accidentally sliced her forearm. Another shrugged a shoulder dislocated from the time her meat hook got lodged in a moving belt.
The federal government cited JBS for safety violations at Greeley in 2021 after a worker at its Greeley facilities fell into a vat of chemicals and died. During the Covid pandemic, workers said they were left vulnerable as infections ravaged the Greeley plant, claiming six lives.
“The hurt from these workers runs deep,” Ms. Cordova, the union local’s local president, said.
Still, the plant’s average wage of $26 is substantially more than many workers said they could make at restaurants or as delivery drivers.
Fidel Meza, 33, who trains new employees, said he had gotten hurt several times in his seven years, including when he twisted his ankle stepping into an unfilled hole in the floor. But he has four children and said he had kept working there for one reason: “Necessity.”
Union officials and a dozen JBS employees interviewed along the picket line said they had reached a breaking point. The union said 99 percent of its members voted to authorize the strike.
They said they were forced to cut meat with dangerously dull knives, were not allowed to go to the bathroom, and had to pay hundreds of dollars to the company to replace their knife sharpeners and safety equipment if something got lost, stolen or broke during a shift.
Workers said they could not keep up with the relentless and increasing speed of “the chain” that carries beef parts from work station to work station.
“They don’t care about their employees any more than the cattle,” said Jim Kees, a plant worker who takes images of meat to determine its quality grades. He compared the job to Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel about Chicago’s meatpacking industry. “If you’ve ever read ‘The Jungle,’ it’s still going on.”
Ms. Richardson, the JBS spokeswoman, said the plant had procedures to provide workers with sharp knives and to allow them to leave the line for bathroom breaks. She said the speed of the production line could not be changed or sped up without oversight from federal inspectors inside the plant.
The plant provided workers with protective equipment, she said, and charged them to replace it only if something was lost or “maliciously damaged.”
“When equipment wears out through normal use, the company replaces it at no cost,” she said.
The strike in Greeley is just the latest strain on an industry battered by financial losses, tariffs and a price-fixing investigation that Mr. Trump launched last year against the country’s largest beef producers, including JBS.
Other meat plants are closing or cutting production because of record-low supplies of livestock, while still struggling to find workers.
“There are so many stressors in the supply chain,” Jennifer Martin, an associate professor specializing in meat safety at Colorado State University, said. “Their biggest challenge is finding access to skilled labor. We need laborers to bring food to our tables.”
Five days into the strike, JBS has started advertising for replacement workers to “cut, trim and fabricate wholesale beef products.” The pay is $23.25 an hour.
Kevin Draper and Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting.
Jack Healy is based in Colorado and covers the west and southwest.
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