The Militant - November 10, 2008 -- North Carolina Smithfield workers to vote on union

Vol. 72/No. 44 November 10, 2008

North Carolina Smithfield
workers to vote on union

BY SETH DELLINGER
WASHINGTON—More than 5,000 meat packers at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, will soon have an opportunity to vote in a union election, company and union officials announced this week. The election comes after years of struggle by workers in the plant to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, in order to fight for higher wages, benefits, and job safety.

In an October 28 phone interview, kill floor worker Israel Ramirez said the news spread quickly in the plant after union officials passed out flyers at the morning shift change. Job safety is one of the key reasons workers need a union, said Ramirez, who has worked six years in the plant. It is very common for hogs to fall off the hooks over the assembly line, threatening workers below with serious injury or death, he said.

The results of two previous votes on the union in 1994 and 1997 were thrown out by federal regulators. Smithfield eventually paid more than $1 million in settlements to workers who were victims of antiunion firings.

In 2006, the UFCW launched a national boycott of Smithfield products to pressure the company to hold a union election. Last year, Smithfield retaliated with a racketeering lawsuit against the union under a federal law targeting organized crime. As part of the new agreement, both the lawsuit and the boycott will be dropped.

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