Cargill Restarts Fort Morgan After an 89-Day Lockout

Teamsters Local 455 members at Cargill’s Fort Morgan, Colo., beef plant voted 1,113 to 211 on Aug. 17 to ratify a five-year contract. Harvest is still set for the week of Sept. 7, after slaughter stopped on April 23.

The ballot ends an 89-day lockout of more than 1,700 workers. The harder job is unwinding a summer of cattle that never came to Colorado, while a rival packer has just taken another Midwest plant out of the bid.

A 1,113-to-211 Vote Ends 89 Days of Lockout

Chris Suazo, a business agent with Teamsters Local 455, said members passed the deal 1,113 to 211. Cargill accepted the count. The union had already told members the contract was “not perfect,” then called it a legally binding deal that gives security to the people who keep the plant running.

Workers first return around Aug. 24, with different job classes coming back on different days over 30 days. Suazo said maintenance crews go first to check equipment, then retraining and safety sign-offs before a full run. He called the outcome a win and said the text improved even if pay did not hit every ask.

THE BALLOT AND THE CLOCK

• The vote: 1,113 yes and 211 no, announced by Suazo on Aug. 17.
• The first clock: Workers start returning around Aug. 24, maintenance first.
• The kill clock: Harvest is planned for the week of Sept. 7, not the day the ballots were counted.
• The last no: An Aug. 3 vote on a union-recommended deal failed by 25 votes, then more than 1,000 members signed for a revote.

Dean Modecker, secretary-treasurer of Local 455, said the mood in the room had changed from the Aug. 3 meeting. Anger had cooled. People had two more weeks to read the paper. They also had news from Illinois.

It was just a different feeling today. Two weeks ago, when we voted, I feel the anger was still there. And then after two weeks of looking at the deal, I believe people just realized it’s time to go back to work. Since we’re not hiding anything, I’m sure you heard, just like we did, that Tyson Beef shut down a plant. So again, we just work for a living, and I think at this point people are just, ‘Time to go back to work.’

Dean Modecker, secretary-treasurer, Teamsters Local 455

In May, the union said members had rejected Cargill’s then-offer by 85 percent. The old contract expired Feb. 22. Cargill locked out after months of bargaining on May 20, the morning after that first no. Workers never took a strike vote. The company shut the doors anyway, saying an unplanned stop on a live kill floor was a safety risk it would not take.

Cattle Already Had a New Address

Fort Morgan can harvest 4,700 head a day at a full run. Before the halt it was averaging 4,000. Those cattle did not vanish. Cargill sent them to its plants in Dodge City, Kan.; Schuyler, Neb.; and Friona, Texas, and paid the extra freight so suppliers and customers were held.

The company said the Fort Morgan pause did not cut its weekly harvest, only moved it. Dodge City, a larger house with more than 2,600 people and a listed capacity of 6,000 head a day, had already ratified its own deal with UFCW Local 2 on May 23, effective May 24. That plant kept running while Colorado went dark.

PLANTS IN THE REROUTE

Schuyler and Friona took the rest of the diverted cattle. The longer those trucks ran south and east, the more the temporary map started to look like the working one. Colorado feedlots lost a nearby bidder for finished cattle. Someone paid the miles, Cargill or the feeder, and regional cash trade had one fewer door.

That is the room a lockout needs. A packer that can idle 4,700 head a day for 89 days without missing its own weekly kill is a packer that can wait out a small-town union. The cattle kept moving. The paychecks in Fort Morgan did not.

Why the Kill Floor Is Still Dark

A yes vote does not turn the chain back on. Cargill’s own labor page, still dated Aug. 17 as of this week, says employees get paid for scheduled work, training and other assigned return tasks when they report as directed, and that return timing will vary by production area.

The company is not publishing extra contract details. It is publishing a restart sequence: train people, prep equipment, line up cattle, then harvest, then broader operations. April Nelson, Cargill’s senior director of reputation management and external communications, said employee safety, food safety and operational readiness will guide every step.

We will work closely with the union on a safe, phased return to operations. Following an extended pause, employees will receive the training and support needed to return safely, while teams ensure the facility is ready to resume production.

April Nelson, senior director, Cargill

Cargill’s public FAQ asks the question suppliers care about and answers it on the company’s terms. Under current plans it does not expect material hits to cattle suppliers or customers, and it will keep using the wider network during the safe, phased return to operations. Initial harvesting starts only after training, cattle availability and readiness are confirmed.

So the plant can be “open” for people and still closed for cattle. That gap is the next 30 days. Suazo warned the process may be bumpy as classifications return on different schedules. The union said it will stay on the ground to enforce the new terms while that shuffle runs.

Tyson Closed Joslin the Same Week Workers Voted

Four days before the Fort Morgan ballot, Tyson ended harvest at Joslin, Ill., a 3,000-head plant with about 2,500 jobs, and said it would close a Utah case-ready site and seek a buyer for Pasco, Wash. Tyson is concentrating beef around Dakota City, Neb.; Holcomb, Kan.; and Amarillo, Texas. It closed Lexington, Neb., in January, a house that had about 3,200 workers.

David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University, called Fort Morgan’s return useful news and then put a ceiling on it. More plants bidding is better for cattle prices. Joslin’s exit still leaves the Midwest with fewer doors and a packing map pulled tighter onto the Plains.

We have plenty of capacity for the number of cattle that we have. But if I’m interested in higher cattle prices, I would rather have more plants running than less because it’s another buyer. It means that those plants have to compete harder for the available supplies.

David Anderson, livestock economist, Texas A&M University

Anderson said Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana feedlots will now truck farther, and that freight shows up as lower regional prices for feeders, calves and fed cattle. Fort Morgan’s 4,700 head coming back raises the national count. It does not put a bidder back in western Illinois.

The herd behind all of this is already thin. USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service counted 86.2 million cattle and calves on U.S. farms as of Jan. 1, 2026. Beef cows were 27.6 million, down 1 percent. The calf crop was 32.9 million, down 2 percent. Cattle on feed were 13.8 million, down 3 percent. Packers are cutting houses because there are not enough animals to fill the ones they built. A lockout that idles 4,700 head in that market is a labor fight sitting on a shortage.

What Fort Morgan Lost While the Plant Sat Idle

About 20 percent of Fort Morgan works at Cargill. The plant is the city’s largest water and power customer and accounts for about 15 percent of annual city revenue. City manager Brent Nation told council the lockout had already forced 5 percent cuts in every department and a hiring freeze.

Nation put the hit, even with a late-summer restart, at $3 million to $5 million. A plant that never came back would take about $15 million out of a $100 million budget and push 15 percent cuts and layoffs. After the July tentative deal he said he no longer saw city layoffs, and that budgeting could return to something closer to normal.

THE CITY’S TAB

• Jobs share: More than 20 percent of Fort Morgan works at the plant.
• Revenue share: Cargill is about 15 percent of the city’s annual take, and its largest utility customer.
• Cash already gone: Nation’s range is $3 million to $5 million lost during the dark stretch.
• County jobless: Morgan County’s unemployment rate rose from 3.9 percent in May to 6 percent in June.

Colorado had 502 unemployment claims from Cargill workers by July 27. State jobless pay tops out at $844 a week. For the first two months of the lockout the Teamsters paid $1,250 a week from an out-of-work fund, more than the old average plant week. After the Aug. 3 no, that dropped to $125 a week plus five times a member’s dues.

State Sen. Byron Pelton, a Republican from Sterling, said the fight put a heavy load on local businesses, cattle producers, workers and the whole town, and that people who live there know what a dark plant means. Sen. Michael Bennet said he was glad the sides had a deal that lets 1,700 Colorado workers return with better pay and benefits. Governor Jared Polis had walked the picket in July with pizza and told Cargill to come back to the table. The elected layer treated Fort Morgan as a town that might not survive a permanent close. The cattle layer treated it as a routing problem with a freight invoice.

Bathroom Language and a Five-Year Wage Band

Cargill is not posting the new rates. The wage band that is public is the one the company has used since spring. First-year hourly pay under the ratified deal sits at $24.20 to $32.10, depending on the job. Base pay under the old contract started at $23.50.

Cargill had called its May package an estimated $33.4 million over five years and “fair and competitive.” Since 2018, it said, base wages rose from $15.35 to $23.50, average wages from $16.22 to $24.78 (about 53 percent), and annual payroll from about $64.5 million to $97.1 million. Union bargainers wanted more money up front, a shorter term, and a Colorado premium over Dodge City and Texas, arguing the cost of living is higher.

Modecker said the company would not give on years four and five. “We had made it very clear that we know the employers and they’re hurting, and we were willing to work with them. What we didn’t want to do was tie our hands the fourth and the fifth (years), but unfortunately, that’s where the company stuck strong,” he said. He said he hopes the company is profitable in three years and reopens the deal if it is.

What Local 455 did get, Modecker said, was language: seniority so people can actually do the jobs they want, safety text, and bathroom breaks. A Cargill spokesperson had said breaks were already scheduled and that workers follow a process to request the restroom outside those times. The union had made restroom access a grievance from the start of the fight, along with wages and health care.

In June the local filed unfair labor practice charges against Cargill after the company cut off pay and benefits during the lockout. Modecker said then that Cargill was hurting working families by locking people out and then taking benefits. Chris Bell, a maintenance worker with 33 years in the plant and a few months from retirement, said on lockout day he was out there for younger workers. The May fight was about money and dignity on the line. The August paper, by the union’s own account, moved more on the second than the first.

Harvest Is Scheduled for the Week of Sept. 7

Cargill has been trimming other U.S. processing even as it brings this house back. In February it said it would shut a ground-beef plant in Milwaukee, a permanent cut of about 221 jobs. Last year it closed a turkey plant in Springdale, Ark. Fort Morgan itself dates to 1966; Cargill bought it in 1987. The company had said as recently as late last year that it meant to keep all eight of its North American slaughter plants open. The lockout tested how long a town can wait on that promise.

FROM EXPIRED CONTRACT TO KILL DATE

1. February 22, 2026: The old Fort Morgan contract expires and talks continue.
2. April 23, 2026: Cargill stops slaughter, sends workers home with pay, and starts moving cattle to other plants.
3. May 20, 2026: After an 85 percent no vote, Cargill locks out more than 1,700 Teamsters.
4. May 23, 2026: Dodge City workers ratify a separate UFCW deal that takes effect the next day.
5. July 28, 2026: Cargill and Local 455 reach a recommended settlement.
6. August 3, 2026: Members reject that paper by 25 votes.
7. August 13, 2026: Tyson ends harvest at Joslin.
8. August 17, 2026: Fort Morgan votes 1,113 to 211 to ratify.
9. August 24, 2026: First workers are due back, maintenance first.
10. Week of September 7, 2026: Harvest is scheduled to resume if training, cattle and readiness line up.

Cargill is coordinating with cattle suppliers on that last step and says it will keep using the wider network until Fort Morgan is ready. The trucks that have been running to Kansas, Nebraska and Texas have to turn around. The 4,700-head floor has to be staffed, trained and signed off. Joslin will not be waiting at the other end of the map.

If harvest starts in the week of Sept. 7, Fort Morgan will have been off the kill for more than four months, counting the April 23 halt. The contract is signed. The cattle still have to show up at the chute.