Back in September 2005, we wrote about the egregious labor practices at Smithfield Foods, including its hostliity to union and its maltreatment of workers - many of whom were illegal immigrants. We specifically cited a report by Human Rights Watch about Smithfield, which among other things cited efforts by Smithfield to pit Black and Hispanic workers against each other in a "divide and conquer" strategy, apparently.
You'd think that after all that bad publicity - not even getting into their giant sewage lagoons or the way they treat animals - Smithfield might change its ways. But no. For instance, today comes word that "[t]he president of the North Carolina NAACP was turned away Thursday when he tried to visit the Smithfield Foods Inc. hog slaughterhouse in Tar Heel."
The Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the civil rights group, said he arrived at the 5,000-employee plant with seven other people, mostly ministers, to talk to plant officials about working conditions that have been a focus of a union organizing campaign.Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said the company offered to meet with Barber at a neutral site, such as a hotel, to have "a real good talk with each other." But Barber said the company's position was unacceptable.
"We said we wanted to meet in the plant where the workers were. We were coming as the NAACP and the clergy to try to pull the parties together," Barber said after the attempted visit.
This follows an action last week, in which "a small group of company employees arrived at a post office in Raleigh with several boxes they said were filled with more than 2,900 letters signed by plant employees and addressed to the union's president, asking for a unionization vote at the plant."
It also follows action last year by Barber, who "joined Smithfield workers and union supports... during a protest at a grocery store where they urged customers to not buy Smithfield products." That sounds like a good idea to me; don't buy this terrible company's products until they make major changes on the way they treat workers, the environment, and animals. If not, Smithfield will just continue on its (definitely not) merry way.
P.S. For more on Smithfield's horrendous environmental record, see here. It's utterly disgusting.
P.P.S. However bad the Michael Vick case, it's no better for animals at Smithfield Foods. In fact, it's worse in a way, because since these animals are for "food," the government looks the other way. In other words, you can go to jail for years for dogfighting, but you make millions of dollars abusing animals in the worst ways at places like Smithfield. Why is that?
