NYT: Union, in Organizing Fight, Tangles With Celebrity Cook

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/20deen.html

Union, in Organizing Fight, Tangles With Celebrity Cook

By MARIAN BURROS
Published: April 20, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 19 — Paula Deen, the Food Network’s ebullient queen of butter-drenched Southern cooking, has found herself in the middle of a dispute between Smithfield Foods Inc. and a union that has long tried to organize one of the company’s pork processing plants.

As part of a national campaign to win support for its effort, the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, is trying to get Ms. Deen to sever her ties to Smithfield, for which she has been a paid spokeswoman since last fall.

Within the growing world of food-celebrity endorsements, Ms. Deen is the first personality to have become entangled in such a fight.


As Paula Deen of the Food Network spoke inside, demonstrators protested Wednesday in Washington.

The latest round of it took place on Wednesday night at the National Museum of Natural History here, where Ms. Deen, on a national book tour, made an appearance before a sold-out crowd.

Outside, as promised, about two dozen people supporting unionization of the huge plant, in Tar Heel, N.C., held a prayer vigil as the audience arrived. Inside, as Ms. Deen responded later to questions that had been submitted to her in writing, a member of the union tried to speak to her from the audience and deliver a letter. That woman, Leila McDowell, and a former Smithfield worker, Lenore Bailey, were swiftly ushered out by museum guards.

Ms. Deen, for her part, issued a news release in which she said, “Now, I’m not an expert on the union situation but here’s what I do know: I know the folks at Smithfield care about their employees and work hard to support the communities where they live, work and raise their families.”


FULL story at link.

[grasswire]

1. I never liked that woman. (eom)

[Omaha Steve]

2. Is there an address to contact the food network to complain?

I don't see a contact us on the web site: http://www.foodnetwork.com/