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Tar Heel Workers Find Unlikely Foes in Fight to Unionize

The 13 year-old fight to unionize the Tar Heel pork plant of Smithfield Packing Company, the nation's second-largest hog farmer and sixth-largest pork producer, has recently encountered an ironic and disappointing setback.  Last Thursday the debate about voting methods for union formation went before the leadership of the World Conference of Mayors  (WCM), a joint foundation of the National Conference of Black Mayors  (NCBM) and the Union des Villes Africaines (UVA).  

At issue was whether employees should be required to unionize under the watchful eye of management through the traditional secret-ballot method or whether employees should be able to employ the contemporary card-check method, which allows unionization whenever a majority of employees sign an authorization of representation -with the latter process being less susceptible to the company's anti-union behavior. 

Considering the history of people from the African Diaspora is one of being disenfranchised as voters and exploited as laborers, one would expect the organization to be sympathetic to the plight of Tar Heel employees -especially when Smithfield has used blatant race baiting tactics to weaken union support.

Instead Johnny Ford, WCM's founder and the first black mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama, took the side of Smithfield and criticized the card-check voting method favored by Tar Heel employees, stating "the right to a secret ballot is sacred…[and] the right thing to do."  Consequently headlines like, “Secret-ballot election is ‘right thing to do’ says World Conference of Mayors, Bladen County governments” ran amuck.   

But how "sacred" can an election process that mimics one of the Jim Crow era be?  And how could a former civil rights activist be so naïve?  Perhaps Mr. Ford missed the Congressional testimony of Smithfield employees like Keith Ludlum, a Desert Storm veteran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HHnuQgN8o

Yes, the previous elections failed so miserably that a federal appeals court judge issued a 442-page decision detailing how the company improperly influenced the election process.  Smithfield was found culpable and paid $1.1 million in back wages to workers who had been fired for union organizing activities.  Yet Tar Heel workers are expected to repeat this "sacred" process for a third time?  This is the true definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result!

It doesn't take a labor buff to understand why employees at the Tar Heel pork plant in Blagden, North Carolina are desperate to unionize -nor does it take a bleeding heart liberal to empathize.   According to a recent the AFL-CIO poll, Public Supports and Sees Need for New Laws Supporting New Ways of Forming Unions, 60 million Americans would like to join unions -well, if they could.   As Senator Hillary Clinton explained, unions are not only extremely beneficial for women and minorities but are necessary in an economy where the middle class is getting squeezed tighter each year.  Meanwhile companies like Smithfield see their profits growing more each quarter.  

So just imagine working in the most dangerous factory jobs in America!   According to a Human Rights Watch report, not only do meatpacking workers perform dangerous duties that take a toll on their bodies, but Tar Heel fails to implement aggressive safety procedures.  This could explain why seven hundred serious injuries were reported there in 2006 alone.  Adding insult to injury, Tar Heel employees live in a jurisdiction with the worst worker compensation program of the twelve states surveyed in the Workers Compensation Research Institute's permanent study group.  In fact, an average of seventy-eight days pass between the date of a North Carolina employee's injury and the date that the first benefit check arrives (and that is if the company's administrators even recognize the claim and don't cause delays, which they are well known for doing).  

Now I can only assume one of two things: Mr. Ford is completely oblivious to the transgressions of Smithfield or Smithfield will soon be making a large donation to his organization.  Just five years ago African Americans made up over 50% of the plant's employees; but they have been, and continue to be, systematically replaced by immigrant workers who Smithfield pays $3-7 less for doing the same jobs.  Today African Americans make up 40% of the plant's workers and have found themselves caught in race wars designed by the company's almost exclusively white management to destroy the union movement by pitting African Americans and Mexicans against each other, as the New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning article "At a Slaughterhouse Some Things Never Die: Who Kills, Who Cuts, Who Bosses Can Depend on Race" illustrates. 

I'm dismayed and disgusted that Mr. Ford, an African American man representing African American public elected officials (who, typically, represent African American constituents), could support Smithfield.  And I'm even more surprised that the NAACP hasn't followed through with its threat to boycott Smithfield.  As a former civil rights activist, Mr. Ford should have used his position to take a bold stance against Smithfield by mobilizing other mayors to lead their cities in the footsteps of Boston's leaders, who banned Smithfield products from 70 of the city's grocery stores.  Instead Mr. Ford gave Smithfield the support of the very people its company most exploits!   If this infuriates you as much as it does me, please contact the WCM's Chairperson, Dr. Terra Thomas, Ph.D., and your city's mayor, if they belong to the WCM, to express your sentiments.  And go ahead, start a boycott of your own! 

Despite Tar Heel workers finding an unlikely foe in the WCM, there is good news! Many Congressional leaders are supporting a pro-union bill entitled the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which recently passed in the House of Representative and needs only nine more votes to pass in the Senate.   The bill will make it much harder for corporations like Smithfield to stymie unions by launching anti-union campaigns or requiring secret-ballot elections to form unions by increasing the penalties for companies who violate employees’ rights in unionizing.   The bill will also include provisions to assist unions with navigating first contracts through the sea of deadlock arbitration negotiations and allow unions to become employees' exclusive representative even without an election, if a majority of employees so authorize it in writing.  

Although Tar Heel employees may have lost a battle last week, with promising bills like the EFCA on the horizon, they still stand the chance of winning corporate America's war against labor. To ensure that our nation does away with archaic voting methods for union formation, please show your support of the EFCA by joining the EFCA action team and writing your representatives if they're not on the EFCA co-sponsor list.