Posted on 11/17/2006 5:32:18 AM PST by Brilliant
More than 300 workers, many of them Hispanic, walked out of a Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) North Carolina hog slaughtering plant Thursday, protesting a labor screening process and what they described as management intimidation and abuse.
"There's a long train of abuses in that plant really going back more than a dozen years," Gene Bruskin, a representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union who serves as the Smithfield campaign director, told The Associated Press. "Recently the activity in the plant has been increasing."
Bruskin said Smithfield officials have failed to address problems of sexual harassment, inappropriate firings and denial of workers compensation claims.
Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said the company was only complying with a request from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to gather the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and gender of workers at the plant. About 600 workers were found to have unverifiable information. The company fired about 75 people for providing false information, he said.
"This walkout - which apparently was instigated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union - is totally unjustified," Pittman said. "If Smithfield were to do what the union is calling for, we would be breaking federal law by knowingly employing undocumented workers. The union should stop trying to pressure Smithfield to break the law."...
Many of the workers who left their jobs during Thursday's morning shift could be heard chanting the word "justice" in Spanish. Bruskin said workers in later shifts planned to continue the walkouts...
(Excerpt) Read more at us.etrade.com ...
I think I'm going to get me a nice big Smithfield ham for Thanksgiving this year.
Same here. I hope they carry that brand locally.
Well, if a Unuon thug says so, it must be true. That's all the investigating the AP does apparently.
There was a place for unions in the past, but they are doing WAY more harm than good in todays world.
"There's a long train of abuses in that plant really going back more than a dozen years," Gene Bruskin, a representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union who serves as the Smithfield campaign director, told The Associated Press. "Recently the activity in the plant has been increasing."
Hello Gene, I'm a retired union member but I am an American first. If the workers weren't here illegally they wouldn't have had any of the things happen to them that you charge.
You know if a worker is an illegal alien. Don't sign them up as a union member. You are damaging your nation you bone head.
Smithfield Workers Walk Out Of N Carolina Plant In Protest [illegal aliens protest]
Fixed your headline.
I guess I just don't get the concept of a 'walk-out' and/or 'strike.' If I don't show up for work, my employer interprets it as a resignation & I'm no longer employed. I fail to see why any company would operate differently.
"Many of the workers who left their jobs during Thursday's morning shift could be heard chanting the word "justice" in Spanish."
Basically, we are importing Mexico's labor problems when we allow uncontrolled immigration from Mexico.
Fire them, and hire Americans. Simple solution.
Keep walking all the way to where you came from.
NC is a right to work state, and I don't believe Smithfield is unionized. It's agitation by this Gene Bruskin, "campaign director" for the UFCW. If they thought they could find replacement workers, I have no doubt they actually would fire those that walked out.
That is why Detroit cars are so expensive.
"Fire them, and hire Americans. Simple solution."
Apparently cleaning pig carcasses is on the list of jobs ordinary Americans won't do.
Thank you, Smithfield, and they make a good ham even our muzzies would drool over.
Where was the INS (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) during this strike/walk-out?
Seems to me to be a great opportunity to round-up and deport illegals.
Yeah, and the biggest one is that they've been hiring illegal aliens.
Got some of their Hams in the oven right now. Looking forward to ham sandwiches this weekend and a pot of bean soup on Sunday.
Apparently, it was a request from the US Customs Service that prompted this screening.
Last night we were driving home from A concert and we turned on the radio (we rarely do this anymore) It was a Classic Rock station and in the 1 and 1/2 hours it took us to drive home a commercial denoting all the outsourcing and evil globalist deeds that GOODYEAR TIRE had done over the last year or so played over ten times. I mostly ignored it but finally listened to the very end. The commercial was run by the United Steel Workers.
Now the commercial didn't ask you to vote for anything or call anybody. It just listed the plants they had set up in various countries and all the plants they closed in the USA.
My question is why? Why would you run such a commercial? There are no ballot measures or elections going on. Are the Unions just openly trashing companies now? I mean they spent some fairly big dollars on these commercials. They were full 60 second spots and on heavy rotation. And, this was no small market station, It was QFM 96 in Columbus Ohio. One of the largest Stations in Central Ohio.
My fathers Steel Worker news letter comes to my PO box. We have notified these feking idiots in writing through the post office over a dozen times and they still send it to us. We even changed Post Office boxes and we still get it. I've read it a few times, it reminds me of some of the crap the KKK used to write about African Americans. These people HATE any company that is nonunion.
Sometimes they have pictures of their Union rallies in the news letter. If you had no blurb to identify what the picture was for you would swear it was a group shot of the extras from Deliverance 2 Revenge of the Hilljacks
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.