North Carolina: Smithfield, UFCW to vote on union
According to the Associated Press:
TAR HEEL, N.C. (AP) — Employees at Smithfield Packing Co.'s massive North Carolina hog slaughterhouse on Wednesday began two days of voting that will decide whether unions will get a rare boost in the country's least-unionized state.
The decision on whether to call in the United Food and Commercial Workers is colored by the rising specter of layoffs amid national economic gloom, and the election of a president and Congress seen as more friendly to labor unions.
But most important in the decision by about 4,600 workers expected to be announced late Thursday will be how secure Smithfield workers feel about their jobs, and whether they think involving the UFCW would help or hurt them, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University and a former union organizer.
"They look at the things that are happening right there in their town or in their workplace," said Bronfenbrenner, who studies factors contributing on union success or failure in organizing. "Has the union focused on the issues that resonate with them? Do they believe this union is theirs? It all depends on what happens there, at Smithfield."
The UFCW has maintained an office presence near the plant for well over a year as it tried to build trust with workers. It has brought in Spanish-speaking organizers to meet with the plant's growing Hispanic work force, and sided with them when federal immigration officials raided the plant. That contrasts with the union's 1994 and 1997 unionizing campaigns, when mobilizers rushed in a few months ahead of the vote...click to continue.
