Is Smithfield pushing a quick election?

Last week, Smithfield foods announced an agreement with the feds over a new union election. This on the heels of another walkout at the plant after another immigration raid. Not a great time for an election one might think.

Union officials say the election can't move forward, pointing out that there are still cases pending charging unfair labor practices (like the unfair practice of threatening or attacking workers engaged in legal protests). The feds seem to agree. The last few elections were a nightmare. Throw into this one even more volatile immigration politics and and the recent history of raids and actions.

Links: Fay-O on the story. Previously in EJS, Smithfield Justice site. Press release on union vote (pdf).

Here's the text:

SMITHFIELD FALSELY CLAIMS ELECTION AGREEMENT AT TAR HEEL PLANT STATEMENT BY SMITHFIELD JUSTICE CAMPAIGN

Smithfield Packing Inc.’s Friday, Jan 26 press release implying that they have reached an agreement with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election at the Tar Heel, NC Plant contains a number of inaccuracies:

• No elections at the Tar Heel plant can be scheduled because there is still a lack of compliance and outstanding Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs) against Smithfield which present a bar to an election.

The most serious charges pending before the US Court of Appeals found Smithfield had beaten, fired, falsely arrested and threatened to call immigration authorities on workers who walked out in 2003 to protest abusive working conditions. Elections cannot go forward while ULPS are pending because they indicate the conditions necessary to hold a free and fair election do not exist.

• The company agreed to pay $1.5 million dollars to fired workers, including interest, not $1.1 million as stated by Smithfield. This agreement was reached after more than 12 years of litigation by the union on behalf of fired workers during which the company did everything possible to avoid paying
these workers what they were entitled to.

• Smithfield Packing President Joe Luter IV said they still “disagree with the findings” and expresses no remorse for the repeated findings of wrongdoing by the NLRB and US Court of Appeals including physically assaulting an employee and union organizer, falsely arresting employees, threatening workers with bodily harm, unlawfully firing and intimidating workers The message to workers is that in any election Smithfield may do it all again.

• Smithfield’s offer to pay half the cost for an independent observer to oversee the election is meaningless. Under an NRLB election such an observer would have no power, only the government does. Furthermore most of the violations, threats, firings etc during NLRB elections occur in the weeks prior to the election, not at the election itself, so an observer would be of no value.

Prior to the 1997 elections then CEO Joseph Luter III agreed in writing on July 8, 1997 that the company would conduct a “positive campaign” and assign a representative to resolve any problems or alleged unfair labor charges quickly. Instead, the 1997 election was characterized by widespread, hallmark violations of the law by the company including threats of violence against workers trying to vote.

Smithfield is making this statement simply as a public relations ploy following the public and worker outrage it incited by threatening to fire workers trying to observe the Martin Luther King holiday last week and its handing over of employees for arrest by immigration authorities this week.

Rather than continuing its pattern of abuse, Smithfield should respect the rights of the workers and allow them a genuine uncoerced opportunity to choose a union and gain the protection of a union contract.

Also check out this new twist in tactics via a recent WaPo story:

Over the past seven months, Bush administration officials have quietly toured the country, trying to persuade businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor to join a little-known program that would spare them from embarrassing federal raids if they voluntarily handed over their workers' documents so the government can scan them for fraudulent information.