April 4 (Reuters) – Workers of the world’s largest meat company, JBS, agreed to return to work at a beef plant in Greely, Colorado after it agreed to resume negotiations, bringing a three-week picket to an end, their union said in a statement on Saturday.
Beef prices set records this year after the nation’s cattle supply dropped to a 75-year low, leading to record prices for meatpackers such as JBS to buy cattle to slaughter, despite benefiting from the climbing prices.
The union representing about 3,800 plant workers said the new round of talks would resume on April 9 and 10 after last month’s strike to press for wages that reflect inflation and a halt to company charges for replacing protective equipment.
“Workers remain united and will continue to fight until JBS fully ends its unfair labor practices,” said Kim Cordova, president of the local union representing the Greeley workers.
It is calling for a contract offer that protects workers, shows them the respect they deserve, and pays them a livable wage, he added in a statement.
There had been no new deal or change to the original offer, a JBS spokesperson told Reuters.
“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 spokesperson added in an email.
The strike dealt a blow to U.S. processing capacity, after Tyson Foods closed a beef plant in Nebraska this year and reduced operations at a Texas facility.
The dispute with the workers, represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union, comes as meatpackers typically seek to boost efficiency by running plants at peak capacity to offset hefty running costs.
(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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