January 11, 2007

Smithfield Foods workers threaten walkout over holiday

Workers at the world's largest hog processing plant threatened Wednesday (Jan 10) to walk off the job next week unless they are given a paid holiday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Hundreds of workers planned to skip work or walk out in protest Monday because Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD) refused to designate the day a paid holiday, workers and union organisers said. Workers asked for the designation Tuesday.

Smithfield employs about 5,000 workers to slaughter up to 32,000 hogs daily at the plant in Tar Heel, a small town about 25 miles south of Fayetteville. The company offers eight paid holidays, spokesman Dennis Pittman said.

Five years ago, employees were asked whether they wanted to take off Easter or Martin Luther King Jr. Day and overwhelmingly voted for Easter, Pittman said.

"If we'd had more notice, we could have switched it. We don't care if they work Martin Luther King Day or Easter," he said. "But we've got hogs scheduled to come in."

In November, about 1,000 workers walked off the job to protest the firings of about 50 workers in a company crackdown on undocumented workers. Employees returned the next day after Smithfield officials agreed give the workers 60 days to verify their identification documents.

Organisers with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has been trying to organise the plant for more than a decade, supported the November walkout and said they would again back workers next week.

The union helped organize an event scheduled for Monday to commemorate King and Cesar Chavez, a former labor leader among farm workers.