Smithfield - campaign for union rights goes global

Posted to the IUF website 31-Jul-2003

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The United Food & Commercial Workers' Union (UFCW) has launched a new campaign: Witness: Justice@Smithfield - that will bring religious, civil rights, community and worker activists to food stores alerting both the retail operators and customers about trade union rights abuses at a Smithfield's plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina.

Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Virginia, is the world's largest hog producer and pork processor. At its Tar Heel plant alone, the Smithfield employees slaughter 32,000 hogs every day�that is 16,000 hogs per 8-hour shift; 2,000 per hour; 33 hogs every minute�one every 2 seconds.

Almost 6,000 men and women work at this plant. By the company's own estimates, turnover is 100% annually; this means that every year, 6,000 people are hired at the plant and 6,000 leave.

Detailed background information on Smithfield can be found on the UFCW web-site by clicking here.

In 1997 Smithfield waged an extensive, systematic, illegal campaign to defeat a union organising campaign by the UFCW.

An estimated 60 percent of the workforce at Tar Heel is Latino, and most of the rest are African American. The plant was featured as part of the recent New York Times series "How Race is Lived in America," where the reporter documented how management creates and exploits divisions of labour according to race.

Smithfield deliberately promoted racial tension to separate the workers. A former supervisor at the plant testified that "Smithfield keeps Black and Latino employees virtually separated in the plant with the Black workers on the kill floor and the Latinos in the cut and conversion departments. The word was that black workers were going to be replaced with Latino workers because blacks were more favourable toward unions." A summary of this testimony can be found by clicking here.

In addition Smithfield sponsored the "A-Team," a group of workers who were paid by Smithfield to spy on their co-workers and campaign against the union.

In December, 2000, an Administrative Law Judge of the NLRB issued a monumental 400-plus page ruling against Smithfield for massive violations of federal law, finding that Smithfield conspired with law enforcement to instigate violence at the vote count.

The NLRB Judge's decision documented the company's flagrant disregard for labour law. The Judge found that company witnesses "lied under oath" throughout the decision and that Smithfield managers conspired with the local Sheriff Department to physically intimidate and assault union supporters.

A recent judgement against Smithfield Foods for civil rights violations during the union campaign awarded one former worker and the estate of a UFCW representative for injuries sustained when they were violently assaulted by plant security officials shouting racist slogans after the votes were counted. Click here to see details of the violence against union supporters.

Meanwhile the 6000 workers at the Tar Heel plant still have no voice, no union representation and hence no protection against abusive behaviour by the company. Although Smithfield was ordered to recognize and bargain with the union it has refused to do so ( to see more click here). This situation is typical of the systematic denial of rights to American workers who try to organize into a union.

Smithfield is undertaking a major drive to establish its presence globally, with major operations in Poland, France, Brazil and Mexico. It will certainly bring with it a violent antagonism to unions.

The Witness: Justice @ Smithfield Campaign is supported by the IUF, and was discussed at the IUF Global Meat Conference in September 2002. To receive more information on the ongoing campaign, go to this special website: Justice at Smithfield.