By Ilena Peng
A strike in one of the country’s biggest beef packing plants poses the latest risk to the nation’s meat supply at a time when U.S. consumers are already struggling with record beef prices.
Roughly 3,800 workers at a JBS NV plant in Greeley, Colorado began a two-week strike over unfair labor practices on Monday morning, according to a statement from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7. The union is seeking higher wages, saying JBS’s contract offer is far below the level of inflation in Colorado.
The strike comes as the meatpacking industry is facing a severe cattle shortage after ranchers shrunk their herds due to high production costs and droughts. The U.S. herd at the smallest level in decades has sent prices soaring, with beef becoming an affordability issue in an election year as one of the biggest drivers of food inflation every month.
The labor action at JBS when slaughter is so low will increase beef prices, ADM Investor Services’ Chris Lehner wrote in a note last week. “It is likely beef buyers have been increasing contracting beef ahead of it, but it will also limit the amount of beef available on the daily market,” Lehner said. The number of cattle slaughtered so far this year is down 10% from the same time period last year, according to a Monday report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The impact of the strike could be tempered as JBS said it can maintain supply by temporarily shifting production to other facilities.
Still, it’s the latest disruption to hit the industry. Meatpackers have been pulling back amid the severe shortage, with Tyson Foods Inc. shutting a cattle slaughtering plant in Nebraska and reducing operations at a Texas facility. Cargill Inc. said last month it would close a ground beef plant in Milwaukee, while JBS said it would close a meat-processing plant in California.
Meatpackers have also come under fire from both sides of the political aisle, even as their beef businesses continue to operate at a loss. The Trump administration has launched a probe into price fixing, and a recent bill from Senate Democrats has called for a breakup of meat companies.
JBS, the U.S.’s largest beefpacker, processes 28,000 cattle per day across its U.S. plants, according to its website, and the Greeley facility has capacity for 5,000 to 6,000 animals, the Colorado Times Recorder reported. That makes the plant potentially the largest for slaughter-ready cattle in the U.S., Ben DiConstanzo, a senior livestock analyst at Walsh Trading, said.
The workers’ union is striking after months of negotiations failed to reach an agreement. JBS has offered less than 2% in average annual wage increases, below the pace of inflation, while workers are also bearing higher health-care costs, said Kim Cordova, the union’s president.
A JBS spokesperson said its offer is “strong, competitive” and in alignment with a national agreement with UFCW International that has provided “meaningful wage increases, a secure pension, and long‑term financial stability” for employees.
Cordova said in an interview that JBS had refused to meet with workers over the weekend to avoid a strike, and that the company is “putting the squeeze” both on its workers and the broader beef supply chain.
She added that workers are taking action even as a significant amount of employees are in the U.S. under the Temporary Protected Status program, leaving them vulnerable to shifting immigration policies. President Donald Trump has sought to curb that program, which allows people from countries in crisis to temporarily work in the U.S.
Work in meatpacking plants is grueling and relies heavily on immigrant labor. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 45% of the meatpacking workforce was born abroad, according to the American Immigration Council. The U.S. Department of Labor found that JBS had failed to protect workers from Covid-19 hazards in 2020 following the deaths of seven employees.
More recently, Haitian workers who worked in the Greeley plant sued the company last December, alleging that they faced even more dangerous conditions because of their race. Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department is currently considering a proposal to increase line speeds at meat plants, which the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has said would further imperil workers.
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.