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The Decline of Industrial Unionism in the Meatpacking Industry:

Event-Structure Analyses of Labor Unrest, 1946-1987

Skidmore College

Cliff Brown

University of New Hampshire

Having negotiated challenges that contributed to the deterioration of most other unions, the United Packinghouse Workers of America entered the second half of the century with widespread support among packinghouse workers and a strong sense of purpose. In the late 1950s, however, meatpacking companies began a radical reorganization of the industry's system of production. Within the next decade, significant deskilling, the collapse of wage standards, and numerous plant closings facilitated the political emaciation of organized labor in meatpacking. Using event-structure analysis to systematically examine and compare labor struggles in the postwar years (1946-1948) and during the Reagan era (1986-1987), the authors find that the development of new corporate strategies fundamentally transformed the capital-labor relationship and led to the collapse of industrial unionism in meatpacking. Most important were the industry's development of new technologies, its geographical reorganization of production, and its ability to locate new sources of cheap, nonunion labor.

Key Words: labor movement • unions • meatpacking • event-structure analysis

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