Free Republic

When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, organizer Eduardo Peña compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless. Yet on December 11, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and...

NAACP assails N.C. Republican adBy Mike Baker The Associated Press Published on Saturday, April 26, 2008 RALEIGH — The North Carolina branch of the NAACP said Friday a Republican advertisement that includes a clip of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s former pastor is racially divisive. NAACP leaders blasted the North Carolina GOP for producing an ad that shows footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s fiery comments about the U.S. The group said the ad takes Wright’s words out of context in an effort to smear the black community and “prophetic ministers.” “It’s a fundamentally race-baiting ad,” said Rev. William Barber, state...

The 21 Smithfield Packing Co. employees arrested by immigration officials while they worked Wednesday are in the process of being deported. The 20 men and one woman arrested were moved Thursday from the Mecklenburg County Jail to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., nearly 700 miles from Tar Heel. Meanwhile, church officials within the region’s Hispanic community and spokespeople with the United Food & Commercial Workers union said the workers’ families didn’t know where they were and other immigrant workers were terrified of more arrests. Production at the plant was substantially diminished Thursday as workers stayed away. “There are hundreds...