Armour Workers United (Pittsburgh, Pa.)

In June 1983, Greyhound, then the parent corporation of Armour, announced it would close thirteen of its meat packing and processing facilities, including the plant in Crafton, Pa., unless employees accepted proposed concessions. Twice between June and December, the workers, who were members of Local 23 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, voted to reject the contract that would have lowered wages by almost 25%, and reduced both vacation time and benefits. This forced the plant to shut down, leaving 260 people out of work, most of whom had been long term employees. Shortly thereafter, on December 17, 1983, the plant was sold to Con-Agra Corporation of Iowa, which announced that they would re-open the plant with non-union labor at nearly half the wages. Armour Workers United was formed in the wake of these events, initially with the goal of negotiating with Con-Agra for the re-hire of the unemployed workers. When Con-Agra repeatedly ignored AWU's requests to meet, the group's objective shifted to purchasing either the shut down Armour plant or a new site on which to launch an employee-owned meat processing facility. In the summer of 1984, AWU began receiving assistance from the Center for Entrepreneurial Development through meetings held at their offices in East Liberty. It was agreed that some of the former Armour workers would attend a class that CED would be offering in August. Following the completion of that class, some of the members of AWU organized Pittsburgh Provision and Packing, taking the name from the original company founded in 1909, which was purchased by Armour in 1936. In the period following the formation of PPP, the group got assistance from CED in studying the feasibility of opening their own meat processing facility in the Pittsburgh area, and sought aid from public and private agencies in attaining their goal.