Smithfield Workers To Vote on Union | Labor Notes: "In a surprise settlement, Smithfield Foods dropped its multimillion-dollar racketeering lawsuit against the United Food and Commercial Workers, Jobs with Justice, and the Change to Win federation October 27.
The company agreed instead to a set of rules that will govern a vote on December 10 and 11 for union representation at its hog slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina.
UFCW Organizer Carl Green reported from North Carolina, “The activists are extremely excited. They always were wondering when they were going to vote. And now their wish has come true.”
The election will cap 16 years of organizing at the world’s largest pork processing facility, with nearly 5,000 workers. The UFCW lost elections there in 1994 and 1997, but in 2006 a Circuit Court of Appeals upheld numerous charges brought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Smithfield. The union had said the company spied on workers and had some beaten up on voting day. The company had to pay $1.5 million to workers it had illegally fired."
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