Immigration arrests lead to more disruptions at Smithfield Packing

Immigration arrests on Jan. 25 at the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, have lead to the third disruption of plant operations since Nov. 2006. The arrests conducted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in cooperation with Smithfield Packaging, lead to the detention of 21 workers at Smithfield's Tar Heel facility. "The entire community has been terrorized," said Gene Bruskin, head of the Smithfield Justice Campaign. "Many of these workers have given their life blood to this company for as long as 6 years and now are being summarily handed over to be arrested and discarded." In response up to 2,000 workers missed shifts on Jan. 26 and 27 fearing further ICE arrests. "On Saturday people left meat hanging on the hook and walk out. The situation at the plant is very volatile, people can walk out again at any time," said Leila McDowell an organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers(UFCW). The walk out was the third in three months. Hundreds of employees walked out or stayed home earlier this month in response to the company's refusal to recognize Martin Luther King Day as a company holiday. Last November roughly 500 Smithfield employees walked out after the firing of 50 employees over no-match social security numbers. The fired employees were reinstated as part of an agreement reached by the company, the striking workers, and local community and church leaders. Union officials contend that the ICE arrests were in retribution for the November walk out. The day before the ICE arrests, up to 600 Smithfield workers received letters from the company that they would be fired. Most of the employees receiving the letters participated in the November walkout. According to the UFCW some of the leaders of the November walkout where on the list of workers arrested by ICE. "These arrests give Smithfield the opportunity to make good on threats to have employees arrested by immigration officials," said McDowell. "This is a company that has been found in the past to illegally threaten employees with immigration arrest when they have advocated for better working conditions." In 2004, the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB) issued a complaint against Smithfield for: physically assaulting employees, falsely arresting employees, firing workers for union activity, threatening employees with arrest by federal immigration authorities, and threatening employees with bodily harm. Last July Smithfield voluntarily joined IMAGE (ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers), a move the UFCW says coincided to the launch of a major labor campaign on behalf of Smithfield employees. Under the IMAGE program Smithfield must now cross reference all employees' names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and genders. Employees that can not clear up discrepancies in 60 days are fired under the program. The UFCW claims that the arrests were illegal because they violate ICE rule against interfering in a workplace experiencing a labor dispute. Smithfield and the UFCW have clashed over the plants union drive, which is now a decade old. None of the arrested workers have been criminally charged but all have been deported or continue to be detained for immigration violations. The UFCW is supporting the establishment of a humanitarian fund to assist workers and their families who are unfairly terminated. Smithfield's Tar Heel packing plant is the largest hog processing facility in the world, rendering so 32,000 hogs per day. The plant has come under criticism from human rights organizations for its treatment of employees, including two separate Human Rights Watch reports sighting problems at the plant.