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Hormel workers reflect on strike’s anniversary By Kurt Nesbitt [email protected] They meet for coffee in the back of a nondescript duplex near the former Milwaukee Road depot on the east side of Austin every Tuesday and Thursday. Their place was a storage room that they converted into a meet- ing spot. The room is a museum of strike memorabilia. A cork board is mostly full of buttons that read “P-9 Proud.” The cabinet in the left-hand corner of the room has hats on top of it that read “Original P-9 Austin, Minnesota.” An electric coffee pot sits below the hats on a counter. A sticker that says “Boycott Hormel Products” is prominent. But 25 years later, the talk among P-9 workers who meet here is not about all that is around them. Instead it’s about the Twins or the Vikings or even the Lansing Town- ship sewer project. It’s only around this time, the anniver- sary of the Hormel workers’ strike, that the wounds are re-opened. At a table toward the back of the room, Olgar Himle and Ardell Gorman sit with a few of their former co-workers around a box of doughnuts, coffee cups in their hands. They’ve talked a lot this week about those days 25 years ago. Today marks 25 years since the union members voted down Hormel’s contract proposal. Tuesday is the anniversary of the strike when more than 1,000 work- ers walked out, starting a 10-month strike whose residue lingers to this day. Workers have talked about it this week, but the company declined requests for comment. Himle had 38 years of seniority with Hormel and was 56 years old at the time of the strike. He worked in the dry sausage division, making prosciutto ham, the highest-priced meat Hormel puts out. “They took so much away, cut our wages 23 percent, guys who had heart problems and had to pay back some of that. We had ’em comin’ from California, trying to bust our union,” he said. “There were divorces and suicides because of the strike. There were brothers, one went back to scab and the other stayed out. It’s still that way today. Some of them have gotten over it.” “We came out of it all right, my wife and I, but a lot of people got burnt, especially the younger people. When you worked for Hormel, you could buy a house because you worked for Hormel. All them lost those houses. All them had babies that were 5, 6 years old,” said Gorman. His wife worked 32 years in nurs- ing. During and after the strike, he and many others worked in the trades. They’ll gather next weekend for a reunion of the “Still P-9 Proud” group. They say it’s more about comradeship than anger and bitter- ness. “We’re all happy here now,” said Gorman. “We lived through it. That’s the big thing. We survived. We’re survivors.” Page A3: Photos from the P-9 strike Pages A4, A6: How the strike changed Austin, Hormel and its workers By Natalie Baudler [email protected] The summer heat has had an impact on the fair’s atten- dance this week, especially in the afternoons. Anita Mittelsted and Dave Miller volunteer for the Senior Center crafts sale. The Senior Center is continuing to raise money for its recent remodel- ing — the money raised from this sale goes toward paying that off. A lot of the crafts are hand- made by members; some are made of recycled materials such as plastic bags. “We have a lot of crafts for sale here, but it’s so hot,” Mittelsted said. Exhibits such as those in the Horticulture building also had a low attendance yester- day afternoon. Becki Pearson volunteers in the building, and was the only person there Friday afternoon. “The evening is much better than the afternoon because it’s cooler,” Pearson said. One business that has the possibility to maintain it’s attendance is the malt stand, which is sponsored by the Mower County American Dairy Association. A worker in the malt stand, Kathy Heimer, has kept busy in the humid weather. “When there’s people here, they’ll buy ice cream,” Heimer said. www.austinpb.com Saturday, August 14, 2010 Calendar ....... A2 Classified ...... B5 Comics ......... B4 Crossword ..... A5 Lotteries ....... A2 Obituaries ..... A2 Opinions ........ A7 Sports ........... B1 I NDEX Your newspaper, your way In Monday’s P-B: Austin’s local-option sales tax continues to climb, as well as its ability to get flood control projects finished faster. “But when people see it on you, they’ll talk louder.” Joke on Page A2 C ONTACT US Lois V. Grose, Warren LeRoy Olsen Page A2 UP NEXT P UNCHLINE O BITUARIES BOY DIES AFTER JUMPING FROM VEHICLE A 16-year-old Austin boy died after jumping from a moving vehicle that was driven by his mother, police say. A2 News tips, delivery, advertising: 434-7340 E-mail: [email protected] In person: 201 S. Main St., Austin, MN 55912 HORMEL STRIKE / 25TH ANNIVERSARY Himle ■ Vol. 85, No. 194 ■ 16 pages © 2010 Post-Bulletin Company, LLC All rights reserved Rochester, Minnesota Weekend F IND US ONLINE Stay in touch and get the latest news at the Post-Bulletin’s fan page on Facebook. Share and follow news on Twitter at PB_News. Heat affects fair attendance 25 years on, some are still ‘P-9 Proud’ Tornado touches down near Hayfield TALK BACK How did the Hormel strike affect you or your family? How did it change the company and the Austin community? Take a moment to send your thoughts to the Austin Post- Bulletin and we’ll publish your comments on Tuesday, the 25th anniversary of the strike. Send them to news@ postbulletin.com or Austin P-B, 201 S. Main St., Austin, MN 55912. Priority will be given to signed comments. Jerry Olson, [email protected] David King, Marty Ehmke, Robert Taylor and Richard Lee are former members of the United Food and Commer- cial Workers Local P-9 union. They’re planning an upcoming event to mark the 25th anniversary of the Hormel workers’ strike that forever changed the community. View the photos at Postbulletin.com Natalie Baudler, [email protected] Fairgoers leave the Horticulture building at the Mower County Fairgrounds on Friday. Attendance is down because of the heat, fair workers say. Twister hits barn, bin, but leaves house untouched By Kay Fate [email protected] HAYFIELD — A tornado destroyed his barn, grain bin and several mature trees, but Cliff Aarsvold didn’t hear a thing. “The wind was blowing the rain through the windows, and when I went to close them, I saw the tree down in the yard,” he said Friday afternoon, just minutes after the storm hit his farm just north of Hayfield on Minnesota Highway 56. The damage seemed even more incredible as he looked at his house, surrounded by debris, but without so much as a broken window. His experience is similar to what much of southeastern Minnesota expe- rienced on the afternoon of Friday the 13th — sudden, viscious storms that hit hard and fast. It was a wild day of weather across the region that began with damaging winds in Stewartville and Lake City, shifted to storms and a tornado in the afternoon and ended with flash flood warnings. In its wake it left damaged buildings, hundreds of downed trees and rising creeks and rivers, but it did not injure anyone. “We know of at least one sizable tornado with the possibility of a few other smaller ones in the mix,” says Todd Shea, a meterologist with the National Weather Service in La Crosse, Wis. “It was a very fast-forming storm that went from a storm to tornado very quickly.” Hayfield firefighters Jon Nelson and Vince Reynolds watched the tornado as it formed just northwest of the intersec- tion of Minnesota highways 30 and 56. The tornado, which Reynolds esti- mated was on the ground for 15 to 20 minutes, “danced around within a mile of (the highway), but it never crossed over,” he said. “It’s amazing it didn’t touch the town,” agreed Nelson. Hayfield homes and businesses begin less than a block east of the highway. No injuries were reported. The storm started in the Hayfield area around 3:30 p.m. It then moved south- east toward southwest Rochester and Stewartville, according to the National Weather Service. An unusual feature of the storm was its repeated forming and re-forming over the Rock Dell area in southwestern Olmsted County, says Shea. While many buildings and trees were damaged, it appears Aarsvold felt the worst of the tornado. Most of his 35-by-50-foot barn ended up in a field just west of the land. The grain bin was wrapped around one of the trees left standing. The contents of both were relatively untouched. The funnel cloud dissipated about a mile north of Aarsvold’s property. A truck driver, Aarsvold, 60, was scheduled to start a two-week vacation recently, said daughter-in-law Heather Aarsvold of Lansing. Instead, a blood clot sent him to the hospital for a week; he spent this week recovering at home. “And now this,” she said, shaking her head. “Honestly, this has been a terrible vacation.” BRUTAL STORM • Rainfall ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 inches throughout the area. • A total of 1.95 inches was recorded for Friday at Rochester International Airport. • Hail of up to 1 inch in diameter was recorded near Stewartville, after the Hayfield tornado dissipated. Source: National Weather Service. Photo courtesy of Jon Nelson A tornado touches down in the area of Minnesota highways 30 and 56 near Hay- field on Friday.
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