Smithfield hit with anti-union complaint, he world's largest hog slaughterhouse is in trouble

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailypress.com/business/local/dp-33536sy0may15,0,4847263.story?coll=dp-business-localheads

Smithfield hit with anti-union complaint
The world's largest hog slaughterhouse is in trouble with the government again over its union fight in N.C.
BY CHRIS FLORES
247-4738
May 15, 2007

The National Labor Relations Board has issued another complaint against Smithfield Foods for allegedly harassing workers attempting to unionize the Tar Heel, N.C., plant.

The company's Tar Heel management is currently under a broad court order to stop interfering with the right of workers to unionize. The union formally complained last October that the company was already interfering, and the NLRB's attorney agreed.

A government complaint filed two weeks ago says that since last fall, Smithfield threatened workers for trying to organize a union. The NLRB also charged that the company falsely told workers the United Food and Commercial Workers Union was bribing employees.

Smithfield was found by the board to have threatened and fired workers during the last major union vote at the largest hog slaughterhouse in the world in 1997. The union appealed the ruling because the punishment wasn't severe enough, and the company said it was too broad. A court said a year ago that both sides were wrong, and let the ruling stand.

The new complaints, along with a pending possible contempt of court charge, are the latest blows to Smithfield's efforts to keep a union out of its massive Tar Heel plant. A major organizing effort has been persistent, ranging from criticism of its handling of illegal immigrant workers to protests launched against its celebrity chef and spokeswoman Paula Deen.

Gene Bruskin, the chief organizer for the union in Tar Heel, said workers outside the plant and off the clock were getting cards signed by people who want a union. The charges stem from an anonymous flier that said the union was illegally paying off the people who collected the cards.


FULL story at link.

[Bluzmann57]

1. I hope the NLRB nails their proverbial balls to the wall

But somehow, I doubt it. Not with this anti-Union administration in office now.

[mcscajun]

2. I'm going to cry for them.

NOT!

Smithfield has a lot to answer for across the board. x(