Unions for Hog Workers

Over the past decade, North Carolina has been hogging a larger and larger share of the nation’s swine production and processing, attracting corporate farm operations with cheap land, lack of zoning, and low-wage, non-union labor.

Now, there is good news and bad news for workers in two North Carolina hog processing plants since we reported on their plight in the “Clean Dream” and “No Place Like Home” issues of Southern Exposure (Winter 1993 and Fall 1992).

The good news is at Lundy Packing Company in Sampson County. A union election held June 3, 1993, at the plant was finally certified in September by the National Labor Relations Board. Workers had voted in favor of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the International Union of Operating Engineers becoming their collective bargaining agents, but the company delayed certification by challenging the 318 to 309 vote.

“I see this as a historical election,” says union representative Ron Kazel. “Since only about 4 percent of the work force in North Carolina is organized, it’s a major event to bring in a union at a large employer like Lundy. They’re no longer willing to work for minimum wage or put up with harassment on the job and all the discrimination.”

They have also had to risk a chronic illness. Hogs carrying brucellosis, a bacterial disease, exposed 129 people in the plant to the chronic flu-like malaise. When the problem was first discovered, Lundy’s was not willing to avoid purchasing brucellosis-infected hogs. Meanwhile, at least 47 workers developed the lingering illness.

“A lot of them struggle and go to work,” says union representative Frank Jackson. “Probably some will end up with early disability.”

But with the union victory, workers have a better chance to resolve health issues without losing their jobs. In fact, workers fired for union activities were compensated with back pay. Yet problems with the company continue; Lundy has been slow to respond to the union’s requests to meet and bargain.

The bad news is farther east in Bladen County where workers and union organizers are engaged in an uphill struggle to organize in a hog slaughtering plant. After meeting strong resistance from management at Carolina Food Processors in Tar Heel, the union lost an August 1994 election 587 to 704.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union filed some 135 allegations of company misconduct during the election. In response the NLRB issued a formal complaint against the company. “They fired six people and threatened the rest with plant closure,” says the union’s Ron Kazel. “They told them, ‘If you sign a union card you’ll be fired. If you vote for the union, you’ll be fired. But if you vote against the union, we’ll give you more money.’”

“We’re defending all charges that the UFCW has filed against us,” counters Sherman Gilliard, director of human resources at the plant. “We do not want a union. North Carolina has the lowest union representation of any state in the country, and we pride ourselves on being union-free. In a unionized environment, individuality is taken away from the employees in terms of being able to speak for themselves.”

The employees who did vote for the union disagree. Some of them report that Carolina Food Processors’ bad behavior goes far beyond poor conduct during the election. “While the election was going on, they would tell people the union’s not thinking about your family, but yet they can’t even get off work to take their sick child to the doctor,” says plant worker Mary Holmes.

“When I slipped on a piece of meat and hurt my knee, they never even let me go to the doctor,” says Agatha Cromertie, another worker at the plant.

Emma Jacobs contracted carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands from her job of separating chitterlings. When an orthopedist recommended surgery, the company told her she could only have a weekend to recover. Rather than risk the more serious injuries that she’d seen in other workers who had returned right after surgery, she quit. “They went through all this suffering and injury,” she said, “and I just couldn’t see myself doing all that.”

These women are working for the union toward another election. “I thought the union would have been great. I thought the union would not have let them send injured people back to work and for simple things like being able to go to the restroom,” says Jacobs. She adds, “The union is not going to stop, and I really pray that they don’t stop.”