The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), September 9, 2006, Saturday

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The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)

September 9, 2006 Saturday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. D1

HEADLINE: Smithfield gets legal victory from labor board

BYLINE: JEREMIAH MCWILLIAMS

BODY:
BY JEREMIAH McWILLIAMS
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Smithfield Packing Co. won a round in a six-year legal battle with a food workers' union over a bitterly contested 1999 unionization vote at the company's bacon plant in Wilson, N.C.
A decision by the National Labor Relations Board has upheld allegations that the company illegally intimidated and harassed workers during the union campaign at the plant.
But the board overturned a decision by an administrative law judge in January 2001 that would have required the Smithfield-based company to enter straight into collective bargaining with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The union lost the vote, 152-108.
Now, the company must post notices acknowledging the workers' right to form a union and declaring that the labor board found Smithfield guilty of violating federal labor law.
Holding a union election "is fine with us," said Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman, who added that the company would not appeal the decision. "We won the first round and we'll win the next one."
Smithfield Packing is a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods Inc., the world's biggest hog raiser and pork processor. Smithfield Packing specializes in pork products and has East Coast operations in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Maryland. The Wilson, N.C., plant has about 640 employees, Pittman said.
Gene Bruskin, who oversees the union's efforts to organize Smithfield plants in eastern North Carolina, labeled the company's call for an election as just "another scam."
The union claimed in labor board cases that Smithfield Packing illegally threatened Wilson workers with the loss of their jobs or benefits if they unionized.
"The company was off the chart, once again, in violating the National Labor Relations Act," Bruskin said. "The company once again violated the law and got away with it."
Bruskin said the union would not participate in a new election because many original supporters had left the plant as the company's appeals dragged on. He said the union would appeal the board's decision to federal court.
"It's up to the union," Pittman said. "The ball's in the court."
The conflict mirrors the dispute between the company and the union at a massive 5,500-worker plant in nearby Tar Heel, N.C. The company was found guilty of violating labor law in a 1997 union drive, and has recently called for a new election. But the union has said it's not interested.
"Especially since this has been in the courts for some time, it's very difficult for an organizing campaign to maintain momentum and enthusiasm when you're in a holding pattern," said Richard Hurd, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "The union would probably have to start from scratch" in Wilson.
n\Reach Jeremiah McWilliams at (757) 446-2344 or jeremiah. mcwilliams@pilotonline.com.