One of Local 81's most successful negotiations was in the fall of 1959 when it achieved several firsts in negotiations: a pension program at a 10 cents per hour contribution rate, sick leave (beginning on the 4th day), and a third week of vacation after 15 years. Wages rose to $112 per week and $95 per week for wrappers. They achieved this by agreeing to a 3-year contract. They maintained their hours standards of no selling of meat prior to 9:00 a.m. or after 6:00 p.m. and no selling of meat on Sundays or holidays.
The increasing retail dominance of the chains (Albertson's and QFC both appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s) created special challenges for Local 81. Increasingly the chain stores introduced new technologies into the meat markets: cry-o-vac (vacuumed sealed) beef being the most evident with the introduction of cutting rooms in their warehouse operations.
The decade of the 1960s was marked by internal political tensions and strikes both in 1964 and 1967. As the meatcutting business changed across the country, meatcutters were debating what direction Local 81 would take in an era marked by the emergence of an employer bargaining coalition—Allied Employers, Inc.—and the dominance of the new grocery chain stores. A strike in 1964 spurred change in union leadership and new priorities for meat department workers.
As grocery stores expanded their hours, it became increasingly important for Local 81 to ensure that the Union defended their 40-hour workweek. They achieved this by bargaining language to provide a 40-hour guaranteed workweek and company-wide seniority language. The 1964 contract contained these two critical provisions. The 1967 contract took a third step in developing journeyman-on-duty language that ensured that employers could not try to cut labor costs by hiring only apprentice meatcutters.
Local 81 also engaged in two critical grievance arbitrations in this decade: Peck (1966) and Gillingham (1970), named for the arbitrators in each case. Both of these decisions strengthened the 40-hour guaranteed workweek for members and provided the foundation for full-time rather than part-time employment, and company rather than store-wide seniority.
Under the leadership of Konrad Johnson, assisted by Mel Roundhill, Frenk Rutledge, and Sid Casey (a fourth business agent being added in 1970), Local 81 defended and strengthened its contract in these years. It maintained the prohibition on the selling of meat before 9:00 a.m. although it allowed the selling of meat until 9:00 p.m. At the time, no selling of meat was allowed on Sundays or holidays. The Local achieved a fourth week of vacation in 1967 as well as funeral leave. The Local also introduced a non-discrimination clause in their contract. Journeymen meatcutter wages were $3.82/hour, $3.35/hour for journey-level women workers. Not until 1971 did the contract refer to meat wrappers, a practice common in union contracts at the time when the workplace included men and women.
In its 1971 contract, Local 81 allowed Sunday and holiday work but at the rate of double-time. Pension contributions were 20 cents per hour. Sick leave was allowed on the 3rd day of illness. A crucial cost-of-living formula was also placed in the contract. In 1971, a birthday holiday was added to the contract. (In 1977, one's anniversary date was added as a holiday.) By 1979, journeyman meatcutter wages stood at $9.29/hour and journeyman meat wrappers at $7.72 per hour. Pension contributions had risen to 60 cents per hour. Aided by cost-of-living clauses, wages had doubled between 1967 and 1979.
The devastating inflation of the late 1970s produced a wave of reactionary anti-unionism in the United States. Local 81's history parallels this attack. The decade of the 1970s saw a see-saw struggle with Allied Employers and a pattern of short, but largely successful strikes. The Fighting 81st maintained strong contracts in both the retail and jobbing houses. There was, however, a steady erosion of membership in the packing houses, as the emergence of more rapid transportation and refrigeration brought increasing economic pressure as employers moved their production to so called “right-to-work" states. A measure of this was the merger of the Amalgamated with the Retail Clerks International Union in June 1979, forming the United Food & Commercial Worker's International Union. Interestingly, Local 81 was the only Amalgamated local to vote against this merger.
The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and the breaking of the air traffic controller strike set the stage for a further attack upon organized labor in the 1980s.
Local 81 lost over 300 members early in the 1980s in a series of jobbing house de-certifications. In 1983 the employer community settled with the Retail Clerks but launched an attack upon Local 81's contract. Local 81 struck Lucky's stores. Other Allied members locked out Local 81 members and, for the first time, locked out Local 81 members in Kitsap County.