http://www.counterpunch.com/johnson01312007.htmlWorker Resistance at Smithfield Foods
Hundreds of meatpackers from the Smithfield Foods hog processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina honored Martin Luther King Jr. Day at a January 15 rally in nearby Fayetteville, where they lambasted the company for its refusal to give workers the holiday off.
Smithfield's 5,000 Tar Heel workers, the majority of whom are Black and Latino, have been trying to organize into the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) since the early 1990s. The company has responded with, in the words of one federal court ruling, "intense and widespread coercion": retaliatory firings, intimidation, and beatings by plant security.
According to UFCW organizer Eduardo Peña, support for Smithfield workers at the Fayetteville rally was "overwhelming." Some 700 people attended the rally, where community and religious leaders attacked Smithfield for its treatment of the Tar Heel workers, while many workers made the connection between their struggle and Dr. King's legacy.
"He died for the workers," Smithfield worker Johnnie Davis told the Associated Press, referring to King's involvement with a Memphis sanitation workers strike at the time of his assassination. "He died for us."
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As buzz about the Martin Luther King Day walkout spread, Smithfield announced January 11 that workers who took the holiday off could be fired. "Some of the workers were intimidated," said Peña. "The company publicly threatened them-in the media, with a press release."
Peña said management also pressured workers individually to come to work on the holiday. Said Peña, "They targeted senior workers, people who already had points against them, told them, 'If you go out, you'll most likely lose your job.'"
According to Peña, Smithfield also went after recent hires, telling them flatly, 'If you walk out, you're fired.'
The threat of retaliation had convinced many workers who signed the original petition to show up for work on the holiday. Despite that, the union estimates that between 400-500 workers didn't work on Martin Luther King Day, with many of them heading to Fayetteville for the rally.
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"When immigrant workers take a stand," said Peña, "Smithfield and the government arrest and intimidate them."
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