For immediate release 8/23/07 Contact:  Leila McDowell 202 728 1829

Boston and surrounding cities officially drop Smithfield pork products in support of workers converging on shareholders meeting next week

Reverend Jackson, Al Sharpton, National Council of Churches, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Judge Greg Mathis, National Baptists, NAACP, Mexican American Political Association petition Smithfield to meet with workers

Shareholders meeting demonstration and petition delivery Weds., August 29th in Williamsburg, Virginia

Hundreds of representatives of national and state organizations will converge on Smithfield's annual shareholders meeting in Williamsburg to petition the company to meet with workers and the union to develop a fair process for the workers to decide on unionization.  Workers from the behemoth Smithfield plant in Tar Heel will deliver thousands of signatures demanding a union.  The signatures, gathered despite intimidation and threats from supervisors, represent the first time that workers at the Tar Heel plant have circulated petitions to affirm their choice for affiliation with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. 

In support of the workers, the city of Boston, Massachusetts voted to drop any procurement of Smithfield pork from the Tar Heel plant and urged supermarkets in the area to halt sales.  Several surrounding cities passed similar resolutions.   Product checks of area supermarkets reveal that several Boston supermarket chains have discontinued the items.  In North Carolina, product checks of Harris Teeter - the chain targeted by religious leaders for carrying Smithfield pork from Tar Heel --  revealed that the product is no longer stocked in most stores.

Smithfield workers at the world's largest pork processing plant have been fighting for a union for 12 years.   Two previous NLRB elections at the plant resulted in over 50 violations of the law by the company according to the Federal Court of Appeals. In various legal rulings, the company was found to have assaulted, intimidated, threatened, illegally fired and used racial epithets against workers during the elections.  Over ten years, after the initial violations, the court ordered the company to pay over one million dollars in back wages and reinstate the workers illegally fired.  Workers want the company to sit down with them and the union to develop a process that can safeguard their democratic right to choose without having to endure another decade of legal rulings devoid of any meaningful sanctions should the company violate the law again.

Human Rights Watch has documented widespread dangerous conditions at the plant in two reports and OSHA data reveals injuries increased 200 percent between 2003 and 2006. "This is a fight about real families and real lives. It's about workers who are tired of being injured and then discarded, unable to work again or support their families," Barber said. 

The organizations will demonstrate at the meeting with large puppets, special songs and large signs and attempt to deliver the workers' petitions and  a blown up letter signed by Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and hundreds of others demanding the company sit down with the workers and the union.   Petitions signed by Smithfield workers around the world will also be given to the CEO and Chairman of Smithfield Foods.

Rally:  12noon    First Baptist Church, 727 Scotland St,
Demonstration and delivery of petitions and letter:   2:15pm The Lodge of Williamsburg, 310 South England Street,

For information, copies of the resolutions and to speak with workers and leaders of the march contact Leila McDowell at 202 728 1829. 

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