HOGGING THE PROFITS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 112

Both the UFCW and the research group have denied these allegations and motioned the court to dismiss
Smithfield's complaint. 62
The UFCW counters Smithfield's allegations by saying that the company “picks up in the middle of
the story that began in the early 1990s,” when Smithfield was cited for illegal conduct in two union elec-
tions. 63 Workers at the Tar Heel plant had attempted to form a union through the UFCW in both 1994 and
1997. The elections were initially lost, but the results were overturned in a decision by a National Labor
Relations Board judge, who charged Smithfield with several violations of federal labor law that inhibited
a free and fair union election. 64 The NLRB ruled that the violations included threatening employees with
plant closure or job loss because of their union activities, unlawfully interrogating employees about union
activities, offering to remedy employee grievances and improve benefits in attempts to dissuade employees
from selecting the union, and even firing employees because of union activities. 65
In December 2004 the NLRB upheld the order for a new union election at the Tar Heel plant, but
Smithfield appealed. Meanwhile, the UFCW charged Smithfield with exploiting racial divides as a tactic to
prevent plant workers—most of whom are African American and Latinos—from organizing. The UFCW
claims that Smithfield kept these workers at separate stations and attempted to turn them against one anoth-
er during the 1997 elections. The company held separate meetings for the two groups, telling the Latinos
that if they voted for the union they would be deported and telling African Americans that if they voted
for the union the Latinos would replace them. 66 Since 1997, the share of Latino workers at the plant has
increased dramatically. Former supervisor Sherri Buffkin testified to the U.S. Senate that Smithfield liked
immigrant workers because they were “easy targets for manipulation.” 67
From 2000 to 2005 Smithfield took advantage of a special state law to maintain its own private police
force to patrol the plant and intimidate workers from standing up for their rights, according to the UFCW.
The force carried concealed weapons on and off duty and arrested workers and detained them in an on-site
cell. The Smithfield police force arrested at least ninety workers and charged them with a variety of crimes.
Ultimately, many of the charges were dropped by the county court, but the arrested employees were stuck
with the court costs and attorney fees. 68
In 2004 the NLRB issued a complaint against Smithfield, its company police, and Smithfield's sanita-
tion subcontractor for violations of labor law. The charges included physically assaulting and falsely arrest-
ing employees, firing workers for union activity, threatening employees with arrest by federal immigration
authorities, and threatening employees with bodily harm. 69
In the winter of 2008 Smithfield workers were given the opportunity, after years of fear and intimida-
tion, to vote on whether they wanted to be represented by the UFCW. In 2009, after an intense and hard-
won seventeen-year battle for fair treatment and better working conditions, workers at the Tar Heel plant
voted for a four-year contract that increased wages. 70
Separately from “Packaged with Abuse,” the UFCW claims that Smithfield operates a facility on the
premises of the Tar Heel plant where workers are sent after an injury. This clinic is responsible for ap-
proving time off and compensation claims. Numerous employees have reported that they are given curs-
ory exams and sent back to work. 71 A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch about workers' rights in U.S.
slaughterhouses found that “workers at Smithfield . . . often described [the company clinic] as a disciplin-
ary arm of management, denying claims and benefits and often failing to report injuries.” 72
From 2003 to 2006, Smithfield's Tar Heel plant was forced to pay $550,000 worth of workers' com-
pensation claims against the company. Workers were forced to hire attorneys to recover their medical costs
and lost wages due to being injured on the job. Nearly all of these workers were fired at some point after
they were injured. 73
In 2003 a twenty-five-year-old employee climbed into a tank to clean it and was quickly overcome with
toxic fumes and died. The North Carolina Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Adminis-