A major strike of beef workers pauses in Colorado—but workers say the fight isn’t over

Thousands of striking workers at a beef plant in Colorado agreed on Saturday to return to work as JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, agreed to resume contract negotiations. 

The workers, who are part of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, went on strike on March 16, 2026, focused on disputes over wages, safety equipment, and working conditions at the plant, which packs about seven percent of beef in the entire country. The strike took place as the price of beef has spiked over the past year. According to the personal finance website Money, a pound of ground beef is now more expensive than the federal minimum wage. 

UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova said that JBS would meet on April 9 and 10 to resume negotiations, and workers would return to work on Tuesday, April 7. “Workers remain united and will continue to fight until JBS fully ends its unfair labor practices and gives workers a contract offer that protects them,” Cordova said in the Saturday press release. 

In a March story for Mother Jones, just days into the strike, Ted Genoways summarized the stakes:

“If the strike lasts more than a few days, then what has been a local battle over workplace conditions, healthcare, and wages could turn into a proxy for bigger picture conflicts—inflation and affordability, the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, and corrupt corporate influence.”

Genoways explained that most of the workers at the Greeley, Colorado, plant are foreign-born laborers from Haiti, Somalia, Burma, and Mexico. The last major meatpacking worker strike, which took place 40 years ago at a Minnesota pork facility, largely failed as the plant brought in over 500 “permanent replacements,” leading to hundreds of union members ultimately crossing the picket line and returning to work. This paved the way for meatpacking companies to consolidate the market, replacing a majority-white, US-born workforce with immigrant workers. A lawsuit filed last December by Haitian workers in the Colorado plant alleges the plant segregated them to a night shift and forced them to work at “dangerously fast speeds.” 

In explaining the rationale for this strike, the UFCW press release notes, “Instead of shifting toward fair treatment, the Company has recently doubled down on its illegal tactics by threatening to discontinue their healthcare benefits, and by threatening workers with termination if they did not resign from the Union and refuse to strike.”

“This decision by the union comes without any new agreement or change to [the] company’s original offer,” JBS said in a Saturday news release about the return to work, maintaining that the company’s “Last, Best and Final offer” is still on the table. 

The union said the company had offered less than two percent more a year in wages, which does not reflect the rate of inflation in Colorado. JBS has denied any labor law violations and said its contract offer was fair.