Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia), October 28, 2008, Tuesday
All Rights Reserved
Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia)
October 28, 2008, Tuesday
Final Edition
SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. B-7
HEADLINE: Smithfield, union agree to election; compromise clears way for worker vote at world's No. 1 hog slaughterhouse
BODY:
Smithfield Foods dropped a racketeering and extortion lawsuit against a union, which in turn agreed yesterday to end its bitter economic and publicity campaign against the nation's largest pork producer.
As part of the settlement, both sides agreed to rules for a United Food and Commercial Workers organizing election at the world's largest hog slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, N.C. The settlement was sealed, so it was unclear how or when the election would be conducted.
The company and the union announced the agreement in a joint statement as Smithfield's lawsuit was about to go to trial in federal court in Richmond.
The union began its campaign against Smithfield in June 2006 in an attempt to pressure the company into unionizing the plant, which has about 4,650 employees and processes as many as 32,000 hogs a day.
The initiative included calls for product boycotts, negative publicity and other actions that Smithfield claimed amounted to extortion. Smithfield claimed lost sales, interference with contracts and other consequences costing the company about $900 million.
Lawyers for the union argued in court papers and in pretrial hearings that using economic pressure to achieve a lawful purpose, such as setting a union election, was not extortion.
Richard Hurd, a professor of labor studies at Cornell University who has followed the case closely, said the settlement sounds like a compromise that would benefit both sides.
"The union is getting what I assume they believe will be a fair election, and the company is getting them to call off the negative publicity," he said.
The union has been trying to organize the massive plant for more than a decade.
Employees voted against joining the union during elections in 1993 and 1997, but a federal appeals court later determined Smithfield improperly influenced the process. The company agreed in a settlement last year to pay $1.1 million in back wages, plus interest, to workers fired as part of the dispute.
The union has insisted that Smithfield's conduct in those elections makes it nearly impossible to hold a fair secret-ballot election and asked that the company recognize the union once a majority of workers signed union cards. Smithfield rejected that approach but offered last year to pay for an independent third party to oversee a secret-ballot election.
In a joint statement, Smithfield and the union said they "have agreed on what both parties believe to be a fair election process" on union representation at the Tar Heel plant.
"The UFCW agrees to end its public campaign against Smithfield," the statement said.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne ordered the parties to say nothing further about the deal until after the union election.
Attorneys for both sides showed up in court yesterday morning before disappearing into separate conference rooms. They returned about 20 minutes laterand began filing out of the courtroom without Payne ever convening court. They declined to answer questions, citing the judge's order.
Spokesmen for the company and the union also declined to comment.
LOAD-DATE: October 30, 2008
<< Home