Where the Hogs Come First

[Christiern]

OP-ED COLUMNIST

June 15, 2006

Where the Hogs Come First

By BOB HERBERT

Tar Heel, N.C.

T

hink pork. Sizzling bacon and breakfast sausage. Juicy chops and ribs and robust holiday hams.

The pork capital of the planet is this tiny town in the Cape Fear River basin, not far from the South Carolina border. Spending a few days in Tar Heel and the surrounding area — dotted with hog farms, cornfields and the occasional Confederate flag — is like stepping back in time. This is a place where progress has slowed to a crawl.

Tar Heel's raison d'être (and the employment anchor for much of the region) is the mammoth plant of the Smithfield Packing Company, a million-square-foot colossus that is the largest pork processing facility in the world.

You can learn a lot at Smithfield. It's a case study in both the butchering of hogs (some 32,000 are slaughtered there each day) and the systematic exploitation of vulnerable workers. More than 5,500 men and women work at Smithfield, most of them Latino or black, and nearly all of them undereducated and poor.

The big issue at Smithfield is not necessarily money. Workers are drawn there from all over the region, sometimes traveling in crowded vans for two hours or more each day, because the starting pay — until recently, $8 and change an hour — is higher than the pay at most other jobs available to them.

But the work is often brutal beyond imagining. Company officials will tell you everything is fine, but serious injuries abound, and the company has used illegal and, at times, violent tactics over the course of a dozen years to keep the workers from joining a union that would give them a modicum of protection and dignity.

"It was depressing inside there," said Edward Morrison, who spent hour after hour flipping bloody hog carcasses on the kill floor, until he was injured last fall after just a few months on the job. "You have to work fast because that machine is shooting those hogs out at you constantly. You can end up with all this blood dripping down on you, all these feces and stuff just hanging off of you. It's a terrible environment.

"We've had guys walk off after the first break and never return."

Mr. Morrison's comments were echoed by a young man who was with a group of Smithfield workers waiting for a van to pick them up at a gas station in Dillon, S.C., nearly 50 miles from Tar Heel. "The line do move fast," the young man said, "and people do get hurt. You can hear 'em hollering when they're on their way to the clinic."

Workers are cut by the flashing, slashing knives that slice the meat from the bones. They are hurt sliding and falling on floors and stairs that are slick with blood, guts and a variety of fluids. They suffer repetitive motion injuries.

The processing line on the kill floor moves hogs past the workers at the dizzying rate of one every three or four seconds.

Union representation would make a big difference for Smithfield workers. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been trying to organize the plant since the mid-1990's. Smithfield has responded with tactics that have ranged from the sleazy to the reprehensible.

After an exhaustive investigation, a judge found that the company had threatened to shut down the entire plant if the workers dared to organize, and warned Latino workers that immigration authorities would be alerted if they voted for a union.

The union lost votes to organize the plant in 1994 and 1997, but the results of those elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board after the judge found that Smithfield had prevented the union from holding fair elections. The judge said the company had engaged in myriad "egregious" violations of federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating and firing workers involved in the organizing effort, and beating up a worker "for engaging in union activities."

Rather than obey the directives of the board and subsequent court decisions, the company has tied the matter up on appeals that have lasted for years. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling just last month referred to "the intense and widespread coercion prevalent at the Tar Heel facility."

Workers at Smithfield and their families are suffering while the government dithers, refusing to require a mighty corporation like Smithfield to obey the nation's labor laws in a timely manner.

The defiance, greed and misplaced humanity of the merchants of misery at the apex of the Smithfield power structure are matters consumers might keep in mind as they bite into that next sizzling, succulent morsel of Smithfield pork.

[sheldonm]

OP-ED COLUMNIST

June 15, 2006

Where the Hogs Come First

By BOB HERBERT

Tar Heel, N.C.

T

hink pork. Sizzling bacon and breakfast sausage. Juicy chops and ribs and robust holiday hams.

The pork capital of the planet is this tiny town in the Cape Fear River basin, not far from the South Carolina border. Spending a few days in Tar Heel and the surrounding area — dotted with hog farms, cornfields and the occasional Confederate flag — is like stepping back in time. This is a place where progress has slowed to a crawl.

Tar Heel's raison d'être (and the employment anchor for much of the region) is the mammoth plant of the Smithfield Packing Company, a million-square-foot colossus that is the largest pork processing facility in the world.

You can learn a lot at Smithfield. It's a case study in both the butchering of hogs (some 32,000 are slaughtered there each day) and the systematic exploitation of vulnerable workers. More than 5,500 men and women work at Smithfield, most of them Latino or black, and nearly all of them undereducated and poor.

The big issue at Smithfield is not necessarily money. Workers are drawn there from all over the region, sometimes traveling in crowded vans for two hours or more each day, because the starting pay — until recently, $8 and change an hour — is higher than the pay at most other jobs available to them.

But the work is often brutal beyond imagining. Company officials will tell you everything is fine, but serious injuries abound, and the company has used illegal and, at times, violent tactics over the course of a dozen years to keep the workers from joining a union that would give them a modicum of protection and dignity.

"It was depressing inside there," said Edward Morrison, who spent hour after hour flipping bloody hog carcasses on the kill floor, until he was injured last fall after just a few months on the job. "You have to work fast because that machine is shooting those hogs out at you constantly. You can end up with all this blood dripping down on you, all these feces and stuff just hanging off of you. It's a terrible environment.

"We've had guys walk off after the first break and never return."

Mr. Morrison's comments were echoed by a young man who was with a group of Smithfield workers waiting for a van to pick them up at a gas station in Dillon, S.C., nearly 50 miles from Tar Heel. "The line do move fast," the young man said, "and people do get hurt. You can hear 'em hollering when they're on their way to the clinic."

Workers are cut by the flashing, slashing knives that slice the meat from the bones. They are hurt sliding and falling on floors and stairs that are slick with blood, guts and a variety of fluids. They suffer repetitive motion injuries.

The processing line on the kill floor moves hogs past the workers at the dizzying rate of one every three or four seconds.

Union representation would make a big difference for Smithfield workers. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has been trying to organize the plant since the mid-1990's. Smithfield has responded with tactics that have ranged from the

sleazy to the reprehensible.

After an exhaustive investigation, a judge found that the company had threatened to shut down the entire plant if the workers dared to organize, and warned Latino workers that immigration authorities would be alerted if they voted for a union.

The union lost votes to organize the plant in 1994 and 1997, but the results of those elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board after the judge found that Smithfield had prevented the union from holding fair elections. The judge said the company had engaged in myriad "egregious" violations of federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating and firing workers involved in the organizing effort, and beating up a worker "for engaging in union activities."

Rather than obey the directives of the board and subsequent court decisions, the company has tied the matter up on appeals that have lasted for years. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling just last month referred to "the intense and widespread coercion prevalent at the Tar Heel facility."

Workers at Smithfield and their families are suffering while the government dithers, refusing to require a mighty corporation like Smithfield to obey the nation's labor laws in a timely manner.

The defiance, greed and misplaced humanity of the merchants of misery at the apex of the Smithfield power structure are matters consumers might keep in mind as they bite into that next sizzling, succulent morsel of Smithfield pork.

...that would be a nasty job. My boss worked in a facility similar to this one summer while working himself thrugh college....not for me!!!

That said, thank God the unions would never use tactics that are "sleazy and reprehensible!!!

m~

[Brownian Motion]

...that would be a nasty job. My boss worked in a facility similar to this one summer while working himself thrugh college....not for me!!!

That said, thank God the unions would never use tactics that are "sleazy and reprehensible!!!

m~

"After an exhaustive investigation, a judge found that the company had threatened to shut down the entire plant if the workers dared to organize, and warned Latino workers that immigration authorities would be alerted if they voted for a union.

The union lost votes to organize the plant in 1994 and 1997, but the results of those elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board after the judge found that Smithfield had prevented the union from holding fair elections. The judge said the company had engaged in myriad "egregious" violations of federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating and firing workers involved in the organizing effort, and beating up a worker "for engaging in union activities."

Rather than obey the directives of the board and subsequent court decisions, the company has tied the matter up on appeals that have lasted for years. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling just last month referred to "the intense and widespread coercion prevalent at the Tar Heel facility."

Workers at Smithfield and their families are suffering while the government dithers, refusing to require a mighty corporation like Smithfield to obey the nation's labor laws in a timely manner."

I would say that Herbert documents his charge of "sleazy and reprehensible" behavior by the Smithfield company pretty well. Since your post seems to imply some sort of moral equivalency between the company's behavior and the union's, what is your documentation?

[sheldonm]

...that would be a nasty job. My boss worked in a facility similar to this one summer while working himself thrugh college....not for me!!!

That said, thank God the unions would never use tactics that are "sleazy and reprehensible!!!

m~

"After an exhaustive investigation, a judge found that the company had threatened to shut down the entire plant if the workers dared to organize, and warned Latino workers that immigration authorities would be alerted if they voted for a union.

The union lost votes to organize the plant in 1994 and 1997, but the results of those elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board after the judge found that Smithfield had prevented the union from holding fair elections. The judge said the company had engaged in myriad "egregious" violations of federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating and firing workers involved in the organizing effort, and beating up a worker "for engaging in union activities."

Rather than obey the directives of the board and subsequent court decisions, the company has tied the matter up on appeals that have lasted for years. A U.S. Court of Appeals ruling just last month referred to "the intense and widespread coercion prevalent at the Tar Heel facility."

Workers at Smithfield and their families are suffering while the government dithers, refusing to require a mighty corporation like Smithfield to obey the nation's labor laws in a timely manner."

I would say that Herbert documents his charge of "sleazy and reprehensible" behavior by the Smithfield company pretty well. Since your post seems to imply some sort of moral equivalency between the company's behavior and the union's, what is your documentation?

...hey cheif, just making an observation that unions (not necessarily this one) are not really know for their above board dealings; having been in them when I knew no better and seeing the dealings from the inside (all the documentaion I need). If you are a "union man" and I have offended you, no offense intended (to you).

m~

[sheldonm]

....also, I did not intend, nor did I say the company may not be guilty of sleazy practice, as it appears they have!

m~

[Jazzmoose]

Well, while I agree that some unions got out of control (the whole organized crime thing, for example) given the benefits unions have achieved, I'd say that on the whole they've been a very good thing. Of course, if child labor laws, the forty hour work week and all aren't things you value, I could understand...

[andybleaden]

yeh I remember reading about hell holes like these where the poor workers are supposed to keep their tools/knives sharp in their own time which usually means that they get blunt and then they really start to hurt themselves as they need to be very sharp and blunter knives lead to more accidents.

It is a shame to think that this goes on but when we judge food by price alone there is no other way unless we target the factories and look to increase better conditions.

Shame on them