On a daily basis, workers across the country are faced with unsafe conditions, low wages, poor or no benefits and constant personal attacks. Working people, the people who make our cities and towns run, can see that we must organize and fight back against these assaults.
The owners of big corporations bring in enormous profits, not by any productive labor of their own, but by that of their overworked and underpaid employees. When companies see workers attempting to mobilize and demand safer working conditions and higher wages and benefits, these same companies turn to the government in order to repress the activity of workers. Companies will use racist immigration enforcement agencies, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—known as Immigration and Naturalization Services prior to 2003—in order to intimidate workers from organizing and uniting for their rights.
Smithfield and Palermo strikes
The agribusiness giant Smithfield operates a hog processing plant in rural North Carolina that slaughters approximately 32,000 hogs a day. It has a history of using an array of tactics to harass workers, such as threatening to cut wages and benefits, operating its own police force and pitting African-American and Latino workers against each other.
Between 1992 and 2006, workers at Smithfield had been attempting to unionize, but the company always responded harshly by firing workplace activists and intimidating immigrant workers with constant threats to call ICE. Smithfield promoted divisions among workers by alternating between hiring practices that favor African-American or Latino workers in order to foster animosity between them on the basis of their nationality. The owners of big corporations bring in enormous profits, not by any productive labor of their own, but by that of their overworked and underpaid employees.
Through determined organizing, however, the Smithfield workers defied the bosses’ divide-and-conquer tactics with united action. On Nov. 16, 2006, workers of all nationalities walked out of the workplace to join a strike in defense of immigrant workers who had been fired by the company and faced potential deportation. About 1,000 workers went on strike for two days, which was enough to stop production at the plant. The company owners were shocked and agreed to the concessions put forth by an elected committee of plant workers, including rehiring the fired workers.
Six years later, in Milwaukee, Wisc., the threat of ICE loomed in order to bust a union organizing drive at Palermo’s Pizza. About 80 percent of workers had signed a petition in favor of forming a union. After this was delivered to the company, 89 workers were fired. The company claimed that ICE had demanded verification of employee statuses within 10 days as opposed to the normal 28, which in turn hastened the workers’ firing. As a result of the workers being laid off, 150 went on strike.
The union contacted ICE to determine if the deadline had been modified, but ICE confirmed that there was in fact no deadline at all. The workers’ struggle pressured the Obama administration to halt ICE’s verification process, which lessened the likelihood of an ICE raid while the workers’ struggle gained momentum.
While the company leaders tried to thwart the efforts of workers to unite and demand better working conditions, wages and benefits, their resilience and determination prevailed. The victories of the Smithfield and Palermo strikes could only be achieved through multinational unity, where all workers, regardless of their background, supported undocumented workers who had been unjustly fired under false pretenses.
No matter how much money the bosses have, workers can shut down the company. The capitalist bosses are scared of the potential strength of the workers’ movement and use government agencies to prevent unions from emerging. We can fight their attempts to divide us with our unity and willingness to fight to defend our dignity.
