Major Kilgore Backer Hires and Exploits Illegal Immigrants

Managers at the world?s largest pork processing plant, the Smithfield Packing Company?s slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC, committed ?egregious and pervasive?? labor law violations during two unionizing campaigns in the 1990s, an administrative law judge has ruled. The judge, John H. West, also ordered the company to adopt numerous policies giving the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, a fair shot in its next election.

[...]

Among the judge?s findings was that company officials had sought to scare the plant?s sizable Hispanic work force by warning that the union, if successful in organizing the plant, would report workers to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In addition, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW):

Since the 1997 [union] election, the number of Latino immigrant workers has drastically increased relative to the number of African Americans. Former supervisor Sherri Buffkin testified to the U.S. Senate that Smithfield liked immigrant workers because they were "easy targets of manipulation." Smithfield has continued to threaten Latino workers about immigration when they stand up for their rights. When the employees of Smithfield's sanitation subcontractor walked off the job in November 2003, the workers were threatened with arrest by immigration, according to the 2005 ruling of an administrative law judge.

Latino workers also face challenges when they are injured.  Although all workers are systematically denied compensation for their injuries, immigrant workers are hardest hit. Many Latino immigrant workers have reported that they have been threatened with termination for filing workers compensation claims, have been told that their injuries were not work related and have been consistently not informed of their rights when injured.

As if all this isn't heinous enough, there's even more:

Smithfield exploited racial divides as a tactic in its anti-worker campaign preceding the 1997 election. The company held separate meetings for Black and Latino workers, turning them against each other.

[...]Shortly before the August 1997 election, workers arrived at Smithfield and saw "Nigger go home" painted on the side of the union trailer.17 Tara Davis testified, "We were pushed on, spit on, maced on, told to get the fuck out of here, niggers go home, and this and that."  Another worker, Rayshawn Ward recalls, "I was beat up and punched in the back of the head and spit upon and called a nigger."18 Jeffrey Green a UFCW representative recounts, "company people were pushing us, shoving us, spitting on us, kicking us, calling us niggers . . ." 

In sum, Smithfield employs and exploits illegal immigrants from Latin America BIG TIME at its Tar Heel, North Carolina hog-slaughtering and processing plant.  It also encourages racial animosities between blacks and Latinos, while treating everyone abominably.  In other words, Smithfield is a major corporate criminal.  Coincidentally (?), this same company is a major donor to Virginia Republican candidates like Jerry Kilgore (and Bob McDonnell, and Dave Albo), all of whom love bashing illegal immigrants in order to get elected.  But, meanwhile, they are happy to take large wads of money from a company that employs and exploits those very workers! 

So where's the "mainstream media" on this story?  I want to see something on this in the Richmond Times Dispatch, Charlottesville Daily Progress, and every other freakin' newspaper in this state ASAP!  Whoops, I forgot, those newspapers are owned and operated by friends of the Republicans and Jerry Kilgore, such as the wife of Kilgore buddy Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), chief deputy whip to Tom DeLay in the US House of Representatives. 

In the meantime, the money keeps flowing into the coffers of Jerry Kilgore et al. from the very people they decry -- employers of illegal immigrants.  But that's the Republican way, after all -- utter hypocrisy as they rant and rave about "law breaking" but then themselves break the laws with stunning brazenness and (often)  impunity thanks to their powerful political friends.  Now, they're trying to buy more of them right here in Virginia.  We've got to stop them.  Cold.

By the way, we can now add Smithfield Foods to the list of scumbag donors to the Kilgore campaign:  Koch "97 Felony Counts" Industries, Swift Boat money man Bob Perry, "Virginia is New York's Dumping Ground" Waste Manaagement, anti-union Alpha Natural ResourcesInc., water-polluter Rapoca Energy,  and Pat "Anti-Muslim Bigot and Advocate of Assassination" Robertson.  As the saying goes, "you are judged by the company you keep."  And Jerry Kilgore should certainly judged by those who give him large sums of cash in return for...undying friendship and love?  Gee, I wonder.

[UPDATE I: More on Smithfield's Tar Heel plant and undocumented immigrants is available from Amnesty International]

[UPDATE II: The more I read about Smithfield Foods, the more I believe that NOBODY -- Republicans, Democrats, Independents, whoever -- should be accepting any campaign contributions from them.  Having said that, there is no doubt about the core argument here, that Jerry Kilgore has received large amounts of money - $73,000 since 2002 -- from Smithfield Foods, and that this company employs and exploits large numbers of illegal immigrants.   There is also no doubt that Kilgore has tried to demagogue the illegal immigrant issue and has bashed illegal immigrants during this gubernatorial campaign.  That ranks as, well, RANK hypocrisy if I've ever seen it.  Finally, there is no doubt that ad hominem attacks simply prove that you have no argument.  Same thing with red herrings and other diversionary tactics.  In this case, Jerry Kilgore's defenders are obviously frantic to distract attention from Kilgore's strong financial ties to an illegal-immigrant-hiring (and abusing) company.  So far, it's not working for anyone who's paying the slightest bit of attention.]

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