Injury rates have skyrocketed at Smithfield Packing, according to a report released on Labor Day by the Justice at Smithfield campaign. Smithfield workers suffer everything from hearing loss, repetitive motion disorders, and amputations. The most common injuries found are contusions and blunt trauma, often with accompanying cuts and abrasions.
Examining three and a half years of logs from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the report finds that between 2003 and 2005, reported injuries jumped thirty-two percent. If injury trends continue at the current rate, there will be an eighty-nine percent increase in reported injuries between 2005 and 2006, a rate that is two and a half times the total from 2003.
Smithfield workers are reporting 66 injuries per month, an average of three per day. But the OSHA logs do not reveal the full picture of safety and health conditions at the Tar Heel plant. According to hundreds of interviews with current and former Smithfield workers, the report finds a culture of fear at the plant, leading many to work in silence through painful injuries rather than face retaliation by company managers.
A frozen hog carcass fell on Teresa Nieto in December of 2004. "I went to the clinic there in the plant, and all they did was to put ice on it." According to an in-depth interview with Ms. Nieto, when she pursued better treatment she was threatened by a company security guard with making up the incident. "They told me they were going to send me to court because I was acting and that no hog had fallen on me."
Smithfield's Tar Heel plant opened in 1992 as the flagship of the meatpacking industry, a highly modern facility capable of slaughtering over 8 million hogs per year. Despite state of the art mechanization, a glimpse inside reveals the kind of human suffering Upton Sinclair described one hundred years ago in The Jungle.
Report on Health and Safety at Smithfield Packing in Tar Heel, NC - Click here
The Council of Churches of Greater Washington, a coalition of 75 area churches, passed a resolution condemning Smithfield Foods for creating an environment of intimidation and fear for workers and encourages its congregants to take direct action by not purchasing Smithfield products and contacting the company. Click for a copy of the resolution in html or as a pdf.
DC City Council introduces resolution condemning Smithfield Foods for creating an environment of intimidation and fear for workers and encourages all supermarkets and vendors in DC from stocking Smithfield meat products. Click for a copy of the resolution in html or as a pdf.
The August '08 issue of Business North Carolina features a cover story on the Justice@Smithfield campaign. Read the article in html or as a pdf.
New York Times columnist Adam Liptak discusses the lawsuit against Justice@Smithfield and the First Amendment. Read the column.
Fayetteville Observer: "Ruling forbids Smithfield Packing using threats"
The March '08 cover story in Labor Notes asks, "Is Fighting for Justice at Smithfield Racketeering?"
Smithifield's Tar Heel workers win a paid Martin Luther King Holiday. Read the press release.
Avram Lyon says when he sees Paula Deen on TV, "all I can think of are the people working under horrible conditions at Smithfield." Read his article in the Forward.
Breast Cancer foundation sues Smithfield Foods for trademark violation.
Read Justice@Smithifield's statement on the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit court ruling on Smithfield.
The final quarter of Paula Deen's hour-long appearence on NPR's Diane Rehm Show Nov. 28 was dominated by questions over her association with Smithfield Foods. Listen to the show using Windows Media Viewer or Real Player.
On Thursday, November 8, 2007, activists with the Western Massachusetts Jobs With Justice organized a protest outside a brand new Big Y supermarket in Northampton. Read More.
On September 12, the Bergen County (NJ) Central Trades and Labor Council passed a resolution calling on Smithfield to "[o]bey the law, by providing a safe workplace, giving Smithfield workers the right to chose a union...free from interferene of any kind."
On August 6, Smithfield Tar Heel plant worker Jose Ozorio Figueroa was terminated. Company representatives claim it was for showing up four minutes late to his shift, but Ozorio believes that he was fired for his union activities. Read his statement.
Presidential Master Chef Talli V. Counsel asks celebrity chef Paula Deen to use her influence to end the “brutal working conditions” at Smithfield’s Tar Heel Plant. Read more.
On August 1, 2007, the City of Boston passed a resolution calling on the city to "review its purchasing of any products from the Smithfield Packing Company in Tar Heel, North Carolina....and suspend these purchases until the company ends all form of abuse, inimidation and violence against its workers..." It also encourages Boston supermarkets "to consider suspending their purchase of any Smithfield products..."
On Saturday, July 14, dozens of Nashville clergy, civil rights leaders and consumers rallied to demand that two area supermarkets to stop stocking Smithfield Foods pork products made at the company’s Tar Heel plant. Read more.
More than 100 supporters rallied in front of a Publix supermarket in Atlanta to demand that the market stop carrying pork products from Smithfield's Tar Heel plant. Read More.
More than 250 family members and supporters of Smithfield Workers delivered a Father’s Day Card to Harris Teeter’s president. Read the news coverage [With Video].
On June 4, the City of Cambridge, MA unanimously passed a resolution in support Smithfield workers in Tar Heel. Read the historic resolution.
Children of Smithfield workers will deliver a Father's Day card to Harris Teeter's PresidentDownload the flyer.
Jim Hightower: Paula Deen "has cooked up a big ol' mess of political controversy for herself." Read the story.
