The Fayette Observer, Fayetteville, NC, February 18, 2005, Friday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 The Fayette Observer, Fayetteville, North Carolina
The Fayette Observer, Fayetteville, North Carolina

February 18, 2005, Friday

HEADLINE: Smithfield critic touts report in Fayetteville

BYLINE: By Michael Clinebell

BODY:

The author of a human rights report critical of Smithfield Foods Inc. came to Fayetteville on Thursday as part of a campaign to promote his findings.
The Smithfield Packing Company plant in Tar Heel was cited in Lance Compa's report for allegedly dangerous working conditions: close-quarter cutting, long hours and inadequate training.
Compa, a nontenured faculty member who teaches courses on work issues at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., wrote the report for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Compa said the report reflects interviews with Smithfield workers and transcripts of testimony from a National Labor Relations Board case regarding charges that Smithfield illegally interfered with workers' failed attempts to unionize in 1994 and 1997.
Compa said Smithfield treats Tar Heel workers worse than it treats employees elsewhere.
"I really can't understand why it is Dr. Jekyll at other Smithfield plants and Mr. Hyde here at Tar Heel," Compa said.
Smithfield executives deny the allegations of in the report, which was released Jan. 25.
The report focuses on three case studies: Omaha, Neb., for beef; Tar Heel for pork; and Northwest Arkansas for poultry.
Compa plans to visit those towns and Jackson, Miss.; Austin, Texas, and Charleston, S.C.
Smithfield Packing Co., a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Va., operates the country's largest hog processing plant in Tar Heel. The 5,000 employees there slaughter, butcher, pack and ship as many as 32,000 hogs a day.
Reported worker injuries at Smithfield cited in the study included cuts from blades and injuries from falling.
Several people who identified themselves as Smithfield employees came to hear Compa.
Leonard Walker, 45, said he has worked at Smithfield since 1996. He said some workers are afraid to report injuries.
"A bunch of them get hurt, and they are scared they are going to lose their job," Walker said.
The report is the second by Human Rights Watch to find problems at Smithfield. In 2000, a report discussed what it said were anti-union efforts at the Smithfield plant and alleged intimidation of Hispanic farm workers employed through the Moore County-based N.C. Growers Association.
The company and the growers association called that report a poorly disguised attack by union supporters.
Dennis Treacy, vice president for environment, community and government affairs at Smithfield, denied the allegations in both reports.
Treacy said the 2005 report is recycled information from the 2000 study.
Union revote An administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board ordered a new union election in 2000 after he ruled that Smithfield violated federal labor law before the union elections in 1994 and 1997.
The judge found that Smithfield illegally fired 10 employees for union activity during the two campaigns, and that a plant manager told employees that voting for a union might result in the plant's closing.
Smithfield appealed the judge's decision to the labor board, which took four years to decide the case.
In December, the National Labor Relations Board ordered a new election.
The company has appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which could take from six months to two years to decide, according to legal experts.
Depending on the Circuit Court's decision, the case could return to the labor board for further review, or it could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
-----