[Excerpt] The dispute between the United Food and Commercial Workers and its Local P-9 over the long strike at Geo. A. Hormel & Co.\u27s meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota has put labor activists on two sides of an emotional and strategic divide. P-9 supporters see the strike, which began in August, 1985, as the labor battle of the decade, with a valiant local union taking a stand against unjust concession demands. But besides facing an arrogant boss, a plant full of strikebreakers and the Minnesota National Guard, the local has had to contend with a betrayal of its effort by the national union. The UFCW argued that the local should accept a mediator\u27s proposal that would have ended the strike in January, 1986, and has now placed the local in trusteeship and moved to end the strike with an unconditional offer to return to work
