The United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Smithfield Foods have announced the settlement of a lawsuit that Smithfield filed against the union in October 2007.
The lawsuit preposterously charged the union with racketeering and extortion for their efforts to unionize Smithfield’s plant in Tar Heel, N.C, the world’s largest slaughterhouse. The owners have a long history of violent intimidation of workers who struggled for basic workplace rights.
As part of the lawsuit settlement, the company agreed to an organizing election for the Smithfield plant. The settlement represents a tremendous victory for workers at the plant, who have fought, with community support, to improve conditions at the facility and for the opportunity to vote on forming a union. Union officials are confident the vote will be fair.
Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant employs approximately 5,000 workers. In the course of the struggle, Smithfield faced boycotts of its products and large demonstrations at the annual Board of Directors meetings, where immigrant and non-immigrant workers united in common struggle against Smithfield.
