In March workers on the cut floor stopped production for several hours to protest Smithfield’s attempt to increase their workload. Workers said this move by the bosses was the breaking point in a long list of deteriorating conditions in the plant.

In a related matter, the Bladen County District Attorney’s office dismissed arson charges filed by Smithfield against two employees who are known supporters of the fight by workers to unionize the plant.

In a number of interviews here over the May 14-15 weekend, workers indicated these are significant developments in the decade-long struggle to win representation by the UFCW. They come after an NLRB decision in January to throw out the results of the last union certification election that took place in 1997—when the union lost—and order a new vote.

The Smithfield plant here is the largest meatpacking plant in the world, with more than 5,000 employees. Workers slaughter on average 34,000 hogs per day over two shifts.

In addition to the United States, the company has operations in Poland, France, Romania, and Spain. According to a Smithfield report to the Security Exchange Commission, sales for the first quarter of this year increased by $356 million, compared to the same quarter of 2004. The company’s total operating profit for the same period rose 88 percent in a year, the report said.  
 
Struggle on the cut floor
Workers on the loin line, a section of the cut floor, stopped production for several hours the first week in March against an attempt by the company to run three lines without enough workers. One of the plant’s most lucrative contracts is pork loin sales to Japan. “If the quality is good it goes to Japan,” said Juan, a worker on the loin line. “If it’s not so good it stays here.”

Workers said the company responded by bringing in new workers, called “green hats,” after the color of their hard hats, with the hope of weakening resistance. “We had to back down and regroup,” said Ernesto, one of 30 workers who stopped work that day.

“Finally we decided to go to the office and tell them, if you are going to run the lines without enough people you have to slow down the line speed,” said Juan. “Then they tried to divide us. The company said they could not meet with all of us at once and said we should pick a few leaders to speak for the group. We told them we don’t have any leaders, we share a common problem.”

“It wasn’t just the line speed,” said Ernesto, who has several years in the plant. “It’s also the way they treat us, the yelling, the suspensions for small things, the discrimination, the lack of bathroom breaks.” Ernesto said when he got hired you could count the number of workers from Mexico in the plant. “We faced a lot of discrimination,” he said. It took him four years to get his first promotion. “Now we are everywhere in the plant,” he added.

About 55 percent of the workforce is Spanish-speaking, many of them immigrants from Latin America. African-Americans, who were the majority eight years ago, now comprise about 35 percent of the workforce. The remaining 10 percent is split evenly between Native Americans and workers who are white.

“After a few hours another person from the office came and said they would resolve all our problems,” said Juan. The company shut down one of the lines, reduced the speed, and met with small groups of workers to hear their grievances.

Juan and Ernesto said the bosses have since started to go back to understaffing the lines and increasing the line speed. “We may have to make another stand,” Ernesto said.  
 
Cleaners ordered to be reinstated
On April 11 the NLRB ordered Smithfield and QSI to reinstate 14 cleaners who were dismissed following work actions in November 2003. QSI was also ordered to compensate the workers “with interest, for any loss of earnings and benefits.” The NLRB said both companies must stop “assaulting QSI employees, threatening QSI employees with arrest by Federal immigration officials, [and] causing QSI employees to be arrested because of their engagement in protected concerted activities.” The company has appealed the decision and has not reinstated the workers so far.

The incident that led to the firings took place Nov. 10, 2003, when some 30 cleaning workers met in the parking lot before their shift started and refused to go to work. “We decided to go in three hours early so we could talk to all the workers and say we should not go in until our demands are met,” said Julio Vargas, one of the 14 fired workers. Their demands included a pay raise from $6 an hour to $7.

Like the workers on the cut floor, Vargas said the fight was not only about wages. Workers wanted an end to the harassment and insults from supervisors and security guards. Vargas said the workers, all male, particularly disliked one form of punishment for alleged safety or production violations that required them to wear a pink-colored helmet for various periods depending on the infraction.

Vargas said the workers also had to buy boots, jackets, pants, and safety glasses from the company. The average cost was $70. “A supervisor would come by and say you need to change your jacket,” Vargas said. “That meant you had to buy more jackets.”

“They didn’t keep their word,” said Ramón, another fired cleaner. One week after agreeing to the wage increase and an end to dismissals for petty infractions the company fired workers they held responsible for leading the work stoppage.

After several hours on the job on Nov. 14, 2003, Ramón said he noticed a commotion at the doors leading out of the plant. Several workers were attempting to walk out after discovering the company’s plan to fire some of them. “QSI supervisors and Smithfield security would not let us leave,” Ramón said. “They told us that immigration was on the way and that if we left we would be arrested and deported.” Ramón attempted to leave by another exit after being chased by a supervisor. During the interview with the Militant he rolled up his sleeve to show an eight-inch-long scar left from being cut on a fence he had scaled to get away. “I never got any medical attention for it,” he said. Juan said he treated his wound at home because he was afraid to seek medical treatment.

“I won't go back for $6.50 an hour, and I won’t go back until we all go back,” said Carlos one of the 14 workers.  
 
Trumped-up arson charge
Last September, the Bladen County District Attorney dropped arson changes filed by Smithfield against Lorena Ramos and her husband, Jorge Vela. Ramos said that on Jan. 12, 2004, she and her husband were taken off the line and questioned about an alleged fire in the plant. After being interrogated separately she and her husband, both union supporters, were handcuffed, paraded through the plant, and held in a cell located on the company grounds.

Smithfield has its own private police force, which has the authority to arrest and lock up workers in the plant. Workers said the cops patrol the facility. “I was very afraid,” Ramos said. “They even stand around and watch you while you are working.”

Since the company’s security force was transformed into a police force in 2000 it has arrested 90 workers and charged them with various infractions. In most cases the charges have been dropped.

Ramos and her husband were first held in the company jail without access to an attorney. “I wasn’t even allowed to call my babysitter to let her know what had happened,” Ramos said. “The whole time they kept trying to get me to sign a statement, but I refused.” Ramos was struck in the face with a folder by one of the cops. She was also repeatedly asked whether the cleaners had paid her to attempt to set the fire. After seven hours the two workers were taken to the county jail. They were released three hours later after posting a $15,000 bail.

“They said they had a video of me striking matches but they never produced it in court,” Ramos said. During the nine-month case Ramos said the company and the district attorney’s office began to offer deals in which she would admit guilt in exchange for leniency. “I told them I would go to jail before admitting to something I didn’t do.”

The company’s case collapsed when it became clear there had been no fire at all. A worker had put her wet and cold gloves in the microwave in an effort to dry them but they burned. The worker wrapped the burned gloves in a paper towel and threw them in the garbage in a break area. “The gloves left a burning smell,” Ramos said. “That was their case.”  
 
Union wins new vote
Two efforts by workers to win representation by the UFCW failed in 1994 and 1997. In January an NLRB panel upheld the 2000 ruling of an administrative law judge overturning the outcome of the 1997 election, charging the company of conspiring with the cops to instigate violence during the vote count. The ruling said company managers collaborated with the local sheriff’s department to intimidate and physically assault union supporters.

Following the 1997 vote, union supporters won damages of $755,000 in a civil lawsuit against the company after union election monitors were badly beaten by company thugs. That judgment was subsequently overturned to the company’s favor on a technicality. According to a January 10 press release by the UFCW, the NLRB has also ordered a new union representation election, the format and date of which is to be set by the board’s regional director.  
 
 
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