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DUBUQUE PACKING COMPANY

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DUBUQUE PACKING COMPANY. Once one of Dubuque's largest employers. The Dubuque Packing Company began with the merger in June 1891 of the Dubuque Butchers' Association and the Dubuque Packing and Provision Company. The new corporation, named the Dubuque Packing Company, began business on July 1, 1891, with a capitalization of $50,000. The directors were J. W. Saunders, C. Steiber, L. Reinecke, and C. Schmidt.

In 1931 the local meat supplier was purchased by Harry WAHLERT when it employed only sixty people. Growing rapidly through the Great Depression, largely through Wahlert's guidance, "the Pack" by the 1950s was the second largest employer in Dubuque. In the 1960s the company's workforce reached 3,500. Annual sales in the 1970s supported a payroll of $20 million. The end of the 1970s saw thousands of people dependent on Dubuque Pack either directly or indirectly, and wages won through negotiations were among the highest paid in the city. In 1978 the company was listed in an issue of "Dun's Review" as the fifteenth largest private company in the United States. Annual sales were estimated at $796 million.

Other facts about the company were equally impressive. Dubuque Pack was the first United States producer to export food products, canned hams, to Italy following World War II. Canned hams produced by Dubuque Pack won the first gold medal for the best hams at the 1960 and 1961 California state fairs. During peak production, nine thousand hogs could be processed daily. A little known fact was that Dubuque Pack was one of the nation's largest producers of kosher meat.

In 1980 the company claimed to have lost $9.9 million. Blaming a changing market, high wages, and inefficient equipment, the company asked for wage and benefit concessions and closed parts of the Dubuque plant. The hog kill was closed in 1981 with a loss of 1,400 jobs.

In April 1982, officials of Dubuque Packing Company announced they would close the Dubuque plant on October 16th. This action had the potential of creating unemployment for 1,200 workers and possibly raising Dubuque's unemployment rate to 17.3 percent.

News of the closing caught city officials by surprise. Union workers at the Pack had taken a 15.8 percent cut in pay and health insurance and given up some vacation time in October 1981 to keep the plant open. The City had given the company a 20 percent reduction in its property tax assessment on buildings in addition to a 38 percent reduction in its machinery assessment. Company officials would not discuss potential sale of the plant in the announcement.

In the fall of 1982, amid charges of union busting, the company sold the pork operation, Dubuque plant, and fleur-de-lis trademark to Robert Henry WAHLERT and the newly created FDL FOODS, INC., for $30.5 million. The sale resulted in approximately five hundred employees being forced to accept lower wages or early retirement.

After the sale, Dubuque Packing Company moved its offices to the DUBUQUE BUILDING and kept a low news profile. Arguments continued with Local 150 over health insurance and pension benefits.