On Jan. 24, 21 immigrant workers were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Smithfield Packing Company’s Tar Heel, N.C., pork processing plant. This was an act of racist intimidation aimed at deterring workers from organizing a union to combat exploitation and terrible working conditions.
The arrests are a violation of the ICE’s own guidelines, which prohibit the agency from facilitating the use of
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The arrests came on the heels of the announcement that Smithfield—one of the wealthiest meat producers in the world—will be firing up to 600 workers next month. The workers who will be fired will be primarily those who walked out in protest last November after 75 immigrant workers were fired for allegedly having invalid social security numbers. The walk out had slowed down plant operations considerably. Click here to read more about the November 2006 walk out.
With the help of the U.S. government, Smithfield bosses have been brutally intimidating workers for over a decade to halt union organizing efforts. In a recently settled case, it was discovered that Smithfield’s private police force had unlawfully threatened workers with arrest by federal immigration authorities if they continued to demand a union. Smithfield has now followed through on those threats.
As a result of the arrests, fear and confusion has spread among the Smithfield workers. Hundreds of workers did not show up to the plant the next day, which stalled production at the plant. Without a doubt, Smithfield bosses will retaliate against the workers for the loss of production.
Workers need a union to fight racist exploitation
The Tar Heel plant is the largest pork-processing plant in the world. At the plant, some 5,500 workers process 32,000 pigs each day.
In order for Smithfield to maximize its profits, production lines are constantly sped up. Pigs travel down the processing line at a rate of one every 3.5 seconds. That equals 8,000 pigs each day per line.
Having to work so hectically on the “the kill floor,” workers standing shoulder to shoulder often mistakenly stab themselves or their co-workers. They regularly suffer carpel tunnel syndrome due to the constant cutting motions they are forced to repeat all day with large, dull butcher knives.
Despite these cruel working conditions, wages at Smithfield are 20 percent lower than that of an average worker in the same region.
Sixty percent of the workers at Smithfield are Latino and many of them are undocumented immigrants. Smithfield has actively recruited immigrant labor because the bosses can more easily threaten and intimidate undocumented workers in order to lower all workers’ wages and prevent unionizing efforts. The recent arrests are an example of such tactics.
While workers are constantly threatened and exploited, Smithfield’s capitalist bosses are enjoying massive profits. The annual revenue of Smithfield Foods is a whopping $11 billion.
Aiming to crush the labor movement
The recent arrests at Smithfield coincide with a new federal program called the “ICE Mutual Agreement Between Government and Employers.” Under IMAGE, businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor submit extensive information about their employees and, in return, the ICE conducts fewer unannounced plant raids which often bring production to a halt.
IMAGE is part of the Bush administration’s racist immigration reform initiative. For the last seven months, officials of the Bush administration and Department Homeland Security have been traveling the country in an effort to recruit businesses into IMAGE. Smithfield Packing Company has been participating in the program since June 2006.
Smithfield’s spokesman, Dennis Pittman, claims that Smithfield’s participation in IMAGE is a “business decision” aimed at preventing disruptions to production. But, as union officials point out, Smithfield has submitted the names of organizers to ICE under the IMAGE program to intimidate workers and get rid of others. (Washington Post, Jan. 29)
Under programs such as IMAGE, government and corporations work efficiently together to use racism as a tool to crush the labor movement.
The arrests of 21 workers have terrorized the Smithfield workforce and the community at large. Families are being torn apart; children are coming home from school to find their houses empty and workers fear going to work.
Revolutionaries and progressives can support the struggle of workers at Smithfield by exposing and opposing the collusion between big business and the government in their racist efforts to exploit workers. This will be an important step in the fight against the capitalist, anti-labor offensive.
