Colonial meatpackers are locked out by their employer.

Some 300 members of Local 11 of the United Packinghouse Workers of America Union are locked out of the Colonial Provision Company. The workers subsequently hold demonstrations in the Haymarket district. After a more than year-long strike, the longest in the union’s history, and a boycott by consumers, a settlement is reached on December 10, 1955. The agreement is signed in January 1956, but only after the union agrees to change its name to Local 616 – because Colonial president, Sidney Rabinowitz had vowed never to sign an agreement with Local 11.