On March 16, 2026, at 5:30 in the morning, workers walked out of the JBS beef plant in Greeley, Colorado. By that afternoon more than 2,700 of them were on the picket line. The plant employs 3,800 people and turns out roughly 5% of the beef in the United States. It sits in Colorado's 8th Congressional District.
A week into the strike, on March 23, their congressman called the union.
Gabe Evans phoned Kim Cordova, the president of UFCW Local 7, and told her he was with the workers. "He had committed that he was going to stand with the workers who are actually the constituents in Greeley," Cordova told the Colorado Times Recorder. The union asked him for two specific things: come stand on the picket line, and send a letter to JBS telling management to come back to the bargaining table.
He did neither. For the full three weeks his constituents were out, Evans never walked the line, never sent the letter, and never said anything about the strike in public.
What the FEC records show
A month before that phone call, Evans's campaign took a check from the company his constituents were striking against.
Federal Election Commission records show JBS USA Food Company PAC gave Evans's campaign committee $5,000 on February 23, 2026. That was weeks after Local 7 members had already voted 99% to authorize the strike. It was the second such check — the same PAC gave him another $5,000 on May 12, 2025.
The money did not stop at the company's own PAC. Senior employees at Cornerstone Government Affairs, the firm registered to lobby Washington for JBS at the time, gave Evans's campaign more than $10,000 across 2024 and 2025 — a dozen separate contributions, which we confirmed line by line in the FEC's own database.
Evans's campaign did not respond to questions about any of it.
What the workers were striking over
This was not a dispute about a rounding error in a benefits package.
Deborah Rodarte, a worker at the plant, told the Colorado Sun that when her knives went dull she couldn't get them switched out, and that a coworker's protective mesh tunic had a ripped section over her chest for "a year, maybe two" because the company said her size wasn't available. Dull knives take 25% to 63% more force to cut, which is how blades slip. The plant processes about 420 cattle an hour.
Cordova said JBS was insisting on poverty-level wages — average annual raises under 2%, well below Colorado inflation — while pushing rising health care costs onto workers. JBS disputed the workers' account of conditions, saying employees can leave the line for approved reasons and that the company hands out newly sharpened knives frequently.
The strike ended after three weeks. Workers ratified a contract on April 12 with 93% approval, winning raises, a one-time $750 bonus, and a requirement that the company pay for protective equipment — the same things they'd walked out over.
The photo he didn't get
Evans did finally set foot in the plant, on April 2 — after weeks of silence, and two days before negotiations resumed. He met with union members. According to Cordova, his team wanted pictures.
"They wanted to do a photo op with our members, and I said, 'No, we want to see what you're going to do first, but you're not here to take a photo op as if you stood side by side with us.' We told him about all of the human rights violations, the allegations of human trafficking, what was going on with wage theft. … He just never did anything about it; he stood on the side of the company."
Workers learned their congressman was in the building the way anyone else would have: JBS put a screen up in the plant lobby welcoming "Congressman Gabe Evans," next to a photo of a staffer from his office. The company announced the visit. The union didn't.
This is a familiar shape for Evans. We've written before about how he keeps posing for photos at Colorado businesses while voting eight times to protect the tariffs squeezing them. The pattern is the same here: show up, get the picture, change nothing.
Who he actually works for
Evans's ties to JBS predate the strike. On February 4, 2025, he was one of two members of Congress quoted in JBS's own press release announcing $200 million in U.S. beef investments — $50 million of it a new distribution center in Greeley. "This announcement ensures that the cattle producers and the local businesses that support the facility will continue to thrive and prosper," Evans said. He has also posted photos of himself touring the plant and meeting JBS executives.
That fits the rest of his funding. Only 10% of Evans's money comes from small grassroots donors, while 63% comes from PACs, super PACs and large donors — ranking him #358 out of 440 House members in grassroots support. The Koch network's super PAC alone spent $1,243,948 to put him in office.
It is also consistent with how he has voted on the things his constituents need. Evans said his vote for the Republican budget law would protect "the people who need it most" — and 12 Colorado hospitals are now at risk. About 90,000 people in his district get food assistance, and he voted to cut it.
Cordova, who has dealt with plenty of politicians, put the standard plainly:
"I don't like any politician to just show up at a picket line for a photo op. We really want to see real advocacy for workers, for human beings. We don't want to hear from you every four years, right? We need to see you every day."
Colorado's 8th District is one of the most competitive in the country. Evans faces Democratic state Rep. Manny Rutinel in November.
What the record shows
Gabe Evans told the president of UFCW Local 7 he would stand with 3,800 striking meatpackers in his own district. He never walked the picket line, never sent the letter the union asked for, and said nothing publicly across all three weeks of the strike. One month before he made that promise, his campaign accepted $5,000 from the striking workers' employer — the second $5,000 check from that PAC — on top of more than $10,000 from the company's lobbyists. The one time he entered the plant, it was the company that announced he was there.
Source
Rep. Gabe Evans promised striking workers solidarity. He took a check instead — Cooper Baldwin, Courier Colorado, August 28, 2026, building on original reporting by the Colorado Times Recorder. Contribution figures independently verified against Federal Election Commission records. Photo provided by UFCW Local 7.
