Striking Beef Plant Workers to Resume Work

Thousands of striking JBS beef plant workers in Colorado agreed to return to work, ending a three-week strike. Thousands of striking beef plant workers in Colorado agreed to return to work, ending a three-week strike at a slaughter plant owned by JBS JBS -2.04%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the world's largest meatpacker. The union representing 3,800 striking workers at the Greeley, Colo. beef plant said Saturday that JBS has agreed to a new round of contract negotiations, with talks set to resume April 9 and 10. Workers will report for their shifts starting Monday. JBS's Greeley plant can slaughter about 6,000 cattle a day, representing roughly 5% of U.S. beef-processing capacity. The strike, which began March 16, has been the largest at a U.S. meat-processing plant in decades. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union last year agreed to a new long-term labor contract covering about 26,000 JBS workers across more than a dozen U.S. facilities. It also provided meatpacking workers with a pension plan for the first time in decades. The UFCW local in Greeley opted out of the deal, saying JBS's wage increases don't keep pace with inflation. "Workers remain united and will continue to fight," Kim Cordova, the local's president, said Saturday. JBS executives have said the company's proposals to the union were fair and remain on the table. A JBS spokeswoman said Saturday that the decision by the union to return to work comes without any new agreement or change to the company's original offer. "We are pleased to welcome our team members back and are preparing to resume and ramp up operations at the Greeley plant next week," the spokeswoman said. "Our last, best and final offer remains on the table." The JBS workers have been on strike at a time when beef prices are at records, and meat companies are losing billions of dollars annually producing rib-eye steaks and ground beef. The smallest cattle herd in 75 years has driven up the cost of purchasing cattle from ranchers, squeezing meatpackers' profits. JBS has said the plant had enough workers to run a partial shift during the strike. The company has also been able to shift cattle deliveries to its other large U.S. processing facilities, such as Grand Island, Neb., and Cactus, Texas, which weren't operating at full capacity because of the cattle shortage.