Action Alert from United Church of Christ Justice & Witness Ministries

One of the most important worker struggles in the country at this time is taking place at the Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina. In this slaughterhouse, the largest in the world, some 5,500 workers, primarily African Americans and Latinos, process 32,000 hogs a day.

The workers are experiencing excessively high injury rates, provocations by management to stir up racial hostility, and extreme interference with their efforts to form a union. The courts have found the company illegally assaulted, arrested, harassed, intimidated, coerced, threatened, fired, suspended, disciplined, and spied upon employees engaged in legal union organizing activities.

Support the Workers

The shareholders of Smithfield Foods, Inc., the parent company of the Smithfield Packing Company, will meet on August 29. You can support these workers by signing a petition urging the company to allow workers to choose whether to form a union without interference. Please add your name to this statement today.

Last month in Hartford, the UCC General Synod adopted a Resolution supporting the workers at the Smithfield Packing Company and urging UCC members to become informed about their struggle and to advocate for justice there.

For more information about conditions in the plant, check out “The Pork is Packed with Oppression” from Justice and Witness Ministries. 

Here are some additional ways to support the workers.

• Don’t buy pork that was processed at the Tar Heel, NC, plant. Learn how to avoid these products by visiting the United Food and Commercial Workers Union site, Justice at Smithfield.
• Tell your local supermarket not to sell pork products from the Tar Heel, NC, plant. (These products are sold under a variety of brand names.) Learn what to look for and how to take action by visiting How to Help on the Justice at Smithfield site.
• Send a letter urging Smithfield to treat workers in the Tar Heel, NC, plant with fairness and dignity, and allow them to freely determine whether to form a union. Write to Joseph Luter III, Chairman, Smithfield Foods, Inc., 200 Commerce St., Smithfield, VA 23430.

For more information or to arrange a visit to the worker support center in North Carolina, contact Edie Rasell, Minister for Workplace Justice, Justice and Witness Ministries, UCC, at [email protected] or (toll-free) 1-866-822-8224, ext. 3709.