News & Record (Greensboro, NC), July 14, 2007, Saturday

Copyright 2007 News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

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News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

July 14, 2007 Saturday

Rockingham Zone Edition

SECTION: TRIAD; Pg. B2

HEADLINE: Smithfield maneuvers to hold vote

DATELINE: RALEIGH

BODY:

RALEIGH - About a half dozen employees of the world's largest hog slaughterhouse carried several boxes of letters to a Raleigh post office Friday, saying more than half of their 5,000 co-workers are asking for a union vote.

"We're tired of being harassed," said Dorothy Walters, who said supporters of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union have repeatedly called her home and come to her door asking for her support.

The delivery was the latest public exchange between Smithfield Foods and the union, which has been trying to organize the plant for more than a decade. The union has declined to hold a vote, saying Smithfield can't hold a fair election, pointing to a history of worker abuse and election meddling.

Union supporters want a card-check vote, which would force the company to recognize a union if the group can get more than half of employees to sign a card.

On Monday, roughly 4,230 rank-and-file plant employees attended a meeting where management offered them a chance to sign letters addressed to the union's president, Joe Hansen. Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said managers showed employees a box and a trash can before leaving the room, then allowed employees to decide where to place the letters.

More than 2,900 employees - or 70 percent of those in attendance - signed the letter asking for a vote, Pittman said.

"The employees have spoken - and it has nothing to do with whether they want the union or not," Pittman said. "They say that they want this over with."

But union organizers questioned the circumstances of the meeting, saying the gathering was unfairly "coercive" and that much of it was conducted in sight of management.

Smithfield employee Keith Ludlum said the company asked people to sign the letters after showing an anti-union video that discussed how boycotts hurt the company.

"The UFCW wants workers to have a free and fair choice," Gene Bruskin, who oversees the union's efforts to organize the Smithfield plant, said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, Smithfield has not shown itself to be capable of doing that."

Smithfield employees process up to 32,000 hogs a day at the sprawling plant in Tar Heel, a tiny town about 80 miles south of Raleigh.

Union activists have used the plant as a rallying cry for card-check organizing.

Their efforts also drew attention in June, when Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards met with union-aligned workers and held a news conference to highlight their cause.

Earlier this year, Smithfield reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board and agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages, plus interest, to employees fired by the company during union elections held in 1993 and 1997.

"Given the experience the union's had there, you can understand strategically why they are calling for something other than a secret ballot election," said Richard Hurd, a professor of labor studies at Cornell University. "It's been somewhat of a tainted environment."

Hurd, who serves as a consultant for several union organizations, said card-check is a more private process that allows workers to talk with each other one-on-one.

"Card-check doesn't work that well without neutrality, but it's better than an election held at the workplace," he said.

GRAPHIC:

Gerry Broome/The Associated Press

Chauncey Morgan (left) and a delegation of Smithfield Foods employees deliver boxes of letters Friday to a post office in Raleigh. Smithfield workers delivered nearly 3,000 letters calling for a union election.