Thousands of meatpacking workers are getting access to a new pension fund — including employees in Souderton

Thousands of meatpacking-industry workers across the country, including nearly 1,500 at a plant in Montgomery County, are getting better wages and benefits through what their union calls a “new standard” for employment contracts.

The new contract between JBS, one of the world’s largest meat producers, and its unionized employees was ratified in a series of recent votes. Their new benefits include paid sick leave and the establishment of a pension fund.

“Today’s contract ratification means better wages, safer working conditions, and a more stable future for workers in this industry,” said Mark Lauritsen, international vice president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents the JBS employees.

“A new standard has just been set in meatpacking,” Lauritsen said.

Some 26,000 workers at JBS are covered by the new contract. It includes workers in 11 states, who are members of 10 different union locals.

Some locals were at different points in their union contracts with the company as they were bargaining one collective agreement with JBS. The effort was “underway for a long, long time,” said Wendell Young, the president of UFCW Local 1776, based in the Philadelphia region.

Souderton workers ratified the new contract roughly a month and a half ago, Young said. They unionized over a decade ago.

“This is a big deal,” he said Friday.

JBS is among the top 25 employers in Montgomery County.

“We are confident that the significant wage increases over the life of the contracts and the opportunity of a secure retirement through our pension plan will create a better future for the men and women who work with us at JBS,” a company spokesperson told industry outlet Meatingplace in an article that JBS posted on its own website.

JBS was approved to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in April. Some conservationists are concerned that the move could allow the company — which has been linked to deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest — to expand its footprint, the Guardian reported.

The majority of JBS’s Souderton workers are in the fabrication department, which handles processing of animal parts that move along a conveyor belt, Young said. To do this work, employees wear chain mail and handle sharp knives, he noted.

“These plants are very challenging, and, you know, potentially dangerous places to work,” Young said.

According to UFCW, the average weighted compensation for workers across the distinct facilities will be between $23 and $24 under the new contract.

In Souderton, the contract applies retroactively to August 2024 and will end in August 2026. Workers will see a base increase of 60 cents an hour applied to the retroactive pay and then starting this August a 30-cent increase, Young said. They will also get a lump-sum bonus of $750.

The contract also establishes a pension plan — a first in the U.S. meatpacking industry since 1986, according to UFCW.

Souderton workers will also be able to accrue sick days under the new contract.

“One thing we learned with the pandemic, we don’t want people coming to work where they work in close proximity when they’re not well,” Young said.

During the pandemic, a worker at the Souderton plant died after contracting COVID-19.

Those who have been employed at the company for 10 years will get four weeks of vacation time. Previously it took 15 years with the company to get that much time off. Workers with the company for 25 years or more will also see additional vacation time.

Bereavement leave will also expand to allow employees to take time off for grieving additional categories of family members.

A committee is being created to discuss new technologies before they are implemented in the workplace. Safety committees will also be implemented in each plant.

Ratifying the new contract has meant collaborating across locals, Young said, which isn’t easy because of the different contract timelines and bargaining priorities at different plants. But the collaboration comes with its advantages.

“We’re stronger together,” Young said. “When you can get this many locals representing tens of thousands of people around the country together for a set of core goals and moving in the same direction at the same time, it’s a little hard to just say no.”