on an otherwise dismal day. The UFCW has “finally succeeded”:http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=312956 in unionizing the Smithfield meatpacking plant.
Workers at Smithfield Packing Co. voted in favor of unionizing, a stunning victory for labor organizers who have waited 16 years to gain a presence in the world’s largest hog processing plant. … Tonight’s victory marks a major inroad for organized labor in North Carolina. … After the union was defeated in the 1990s, the voting results were challenged with allegations that management harassed and intimidated workers. In May 2006, a federal court ruled that Smithfield must stop anti-union tactics and allow a vote.
(Longtime CT readers may remember a “disgracefully dishonest”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/16/ducking-under/#more-4799 _Economist_ story on how great the Smithfield plant was for immigrants from a couple of years back and a series of “increasingly”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/17/asymmetrical-information/ “ludicrous”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/21/up-to-a-point-lord-copper/#more-4820 posts from Megan McArdle, then writing at said journal, defending same)
{ 3 comments }
rea 12.12.08 at 4:58 pm
a series of increasingly ludicrous posts from Megan McArdle
Ah, a whole career summed up in a phrase . . .
Steven Attewell 12.12.08 at 11:40 pm
My favorite part about the Smithfield story is the part in which “anti-union tactics” at one point included branding “vote no” onto the side of pigs to be processed. The semiotics of that statement boggle the mind.
But good for UFCW. My first labor action was with them, so I have a nostalgic affection.
lemuel pitkin 12.13.08 at 3:04 am
Good for UFCW, indeed. And good for CT for calling attention.
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