Bringing Home The Bacon...Not So Much

[Omaha Steve]

Bringing Home The Bacon...Not So Much
It's been 100 years since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed horrific conditions faced by workers in the meatpacking industry. Unfortunately, time is standing still at Smithfield Packing company in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Poverty wages, brutal conditions, and crippling injuries are part of every day life for workers at the world's largest hog processing plant. Help us flood the phone lines of Smithfield's CEO Joe Luter. In FY 2005, he made $10.8 million while many workers were paid less than $10 an hour. Call Luter at [phone] and tell him to respect his workers' rights. Check out Justice at Smithfield for more info.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. Not to hijack the thread

but speaking of Upton Sinclair have you ever read his book, "Oil!"? It's a great read.

[davsand]

2. A NYT columnist had an op ed on this recently.

"Bob Herbert: Where the Hogs Come First...An American Metaphor

Butchery, Barbarity & Exploitation

The Smithfield Packing Company is a case study in both the butchering of hogs and the systematic exploitation of vulnerable workers..."

NYT requires a subscription so I won't link to their site. I did, however, find it online at the following link:

http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/6/15/2033414.html

------

This place is a case study in all that can be wrong about corporate America. For the princely sum of about $8.00 an hour under educated and minority workers can risk life and limb to help bring us all pork products.

The company has intimidated and even beaten workers who have tried to unionize and has used illegal tactics for years to block UFCW from going in there.

Something they don't talk about in that article, is the fact that pork production in the US is in the hands of about 4 or 5 of these companies. Chicken or poultry production is similarly controlled by a few major corporations.

Doesn't that make you feel good about our food supply?

:puke:


Laura

Edited to add formatting and quote marks

[Omaha Steve]

3. Tensions high as union vote called at Smithfield

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149188902075&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099

Monday, July 3, 2006
Tensions high as union vote called at Smithfield

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TAR HEEL

After more than 10 years of opposing the formation of a union at the nation's largest hog-killing plant in Bladen County, Smithfield Packing Co. is calling for a vote so that workers can decide if they want union representation.

The request made June 29 comes after a campaign orga-nized by the United Food and Com-mercial Workers union against Smithfield. The union says that Smithfield exploits and endangers its workers.

The call for a vote has done little to ease the tension between Smithfield and the un-ion, which lost past unionization elections at the Smithfield plant in 1994 and 1997.

In May, the U.S. Court of Ap-peals for the District of Columbia ruled that Smithfield must pledge to never threat-en workers trying to un-ionize, concluding that Smithfield broke the law blunting a union drive nearly 10 years ago.

The ruling requires Smithfield, a division of Virginia's Smithfield Foods Inc., to post notices and mail letters saying that it will never assault, interrogate or intimidate workers trying to organize.

They want to settle the is-sue of unionization with another election. Smithfield executives said that the company will help pay for a neutral observer to oversee an election.