Billings, MT - In a show of solidarity with striking auto workers in Flint, Mich., a group of Montana ranchers is planning to send the workers a shipment of beef.
The Northern Plains Resource Council says it hopes to raise enough donations to ship at least 1,000 pounds of ground beef to workers in Flint by the Fourth of July.
Rancher and council board member Jeanne Charter said: "When you really look at what's going on, independent cattle producers in Montana are in the same boat as the autoworkers in Michigan. Our common cause is fairness and job and trade security."
The group says its "Union Beef Order" is designed to show solidarity with the strikers' plight and demonstrate how US beef markets should operate.
The council says "cartel-type behavior in the beef packing and retail sectors has virtually eliminated open public trading."
She says: "(Ranchers) can learn a lot from the striking workers. We can either take action now to restore honest markets, or we will be forced into a position similar to America's chicken farmers, who produce under an exploitative contract system, without labor's hard-won right to collective bargaining."
The council said a family-owned grocery store in Michigan was set to distribute beef to striking workers after verifying that the beef is certified and from a unionized American plant.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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