Controversial pork plant spotlighted at Congressional Hearings
Thursday, February 8 10:30am2175 Rayburn
Reinstated worker testifies on abuses by Smithfield During Elections
Smithfield Packing in Tar Heel, North Carolina, the world's largest pork processing plant, will be highlighted as a graphic illustration of how companies thwart union elections in hearings on the Employee Free Choice Act, a legislative initiative that would advance alternatives to union elections. The legislation is now receiving broad support from lawmakers with Democratic control of the House and Senate.
This proposed law would fix the broken process through which workers form unions by imposing stiffer penalties against employers that violate labor law, and would set up a process for newly-organized workers to negotiate a first contract in a timely manner. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers could opt to follow the "voluntary recognition" method of organizing, where workers choose union representation through a process in which a majority signs cards indicating their support.
Smithfield Packing is one of the more notorious cases of a company violating the law to avoid unionization of its plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Various legal rulings in cases of employees advocating for better working conditions or attempting elections, found that Smithfield intimidated, unlawfully fired, assaulted, threatened with arrest by immigration authorities, harassed, threatened with violence and hurled racial epithets at workers. Both elections at Smithfield Packing in 1994 and 1997 were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board. The company formed its own private police force, disbanded in 2005, that harassed and assaulted workers.
Keith Ludlum, a Desert Storm veteran and fired from Smithfield for union advocacy, was recently reinstated by court order over 9 years after being fired for union organizing. Keith, currently working in livestock, will testify to the intimidation that he and his fellow workers endured during election attempts. "On the day of the election, deputy county sheriffs, dressed in battle gear, lined the long driveway leading to the plant. As workers passed the lines of police, they saw company management standing with the head of the sheriff's department. Following the vote count on the final day of balloting, company personnel stormed the counting area and in the resulting confrontation, two union supporters were beaten and arrested by the company's security officers," Ludlum will testify.
Workers have been trying to form a union with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union for over 12 years. For more information contact Leila McDowell at 202 728 1829.
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DC City Council introduces resolution condemning Smithfield Foods for creating an environment of intimidation and fear for workers and encourages all supermarkets and vendors in DC from stocking Smithfield meat products. Click for a copy of the resolution in html or as a pdf.
The August '08 issue of Business North Carolina features a cover story on the Justice@Smithfield campaign. Read the article in html or as a pdf.
New York Times columnist Adam Liptak discusses the lawsuit against Justice@Smithfield and the First Amendment. Read the column.
Fayetteville Observer: "Ruling forbids Smithfield Packing using threats"
The March '08 cover story in Labor Notes asks, "Is Fighting for Justice at Smithfield Racketeering?"
Smithifield's Tar Heel workers win a paid Martin Luther King Holiday. Read the press release.
Avram Lyon says when he sees Paula Deen on TV, "all I can think of are the people working under horrible conditions at Smithfield." Read his article in the Forward.
Breast Cancer foundation sues Smithfield Foods for trademark violation.
Read Justice@Smithifield's statement on the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit court ruling on Smithfield.
The final quarter of Paula Deen's hour-long appearence on NPR's Diane Rehm Show Nov. 28 was dominated by questions over her association with Smithfield Foods. Listen to the show using Windows Media Viewer or Real Player.
On Thursday, November 8, 2007, activists with the Western Massachusetts Jobs With Justice organized a protest outside a brand new Big Y supermarket in Northampton. Read More.
On September 12, the Bergen County (NJ) Central Trades and Labor Council passed a resolution calling on Smithfield to "[o]bey the law, by providing a safe workplace, giving Smithfield workers the right to chose a union...free from interferene of any kind."
On August 6, Smithfield Tar Heel plant worker Jose Ozorio Figueroa was terminated. Company representatives claim it was for showing up four minutes late to his shift, but Ozorio believes that he was fired for his union activities. Read his statement.
Presidential Master Chef Talli V. Counsel asks celebrity chef Paula Deen to use her influence to end the “brutal working conditions” at Smithfield’s Tar Heel Plant. Read more.
On August 1, 2007, the City of Boston passed a resolution calling on the city to "review its purchasing of any products from the Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina....and suspend these purchases until the company ends all form of abuse, inimidation and violence against its workers..." It also encourages Boston supermarkets "to consider suspending their purchase of any Smithfield products..."
On Saturday, July 14, dozens of Nashville clergy, civil rights leaders and consumers rallied to demand that two area supermarkets to stop stocking Smithfield Foods pork products made at the company’s Tar Heel plant. Read more.
More than 100 supporters rallied in front of a Publix supermarket in Atlanta to demand that the market stop carrying pork products from Smithfield's Tar Heel plant. Read More.
More than 250 family members and supporters of Smithfield Workers delivered a Father’s Day Card to Harris Teeter’s president. Read the news coverage [With Video].
On June 4, the City of Cambridge, MA unanimously passed a resolution in support Smithfield workers in Tar Heel. Read the historic resolution.
Children of Smithfield workers will deliver a Father's Day card to Harris Teeter's PresidentDownload the flyer.
Jim Hightower: Paula Deen "has cooked up a big ol' mess of political controversy for herself." Read the story.
