Smithfield Workers Vote to Unionize

Workers at the world's largest pork producer and the country's largest turkey producer have voted to unionize.

Smithfield Packing workers in Tar Heel, North Carolina, have attempted to unionize for at least 14 years. In September I wrote about the company's anti-union tactics, as well as the abuse the animals there face and the environmental destruction caused by the facility.

The results of two elections in the 1990s were thrown out due to company officials harassing employees. One worker had even been forced to stamp "Vote No" on dead pigs.

Smithfield and the union have a year to agree to a contract. The workers are hoping for better health care and workers compensation and a voice in setting hours and determining workloads.

The nearly 5,000 workers kill 32,000 pigs each day.

Some pull pigs off trucks and usher them to a gas chamber. Others work in a cavernous room where freshly killed hogs are wrestled onto hooks, decapitated and sliced in half.

Some spend all day pulling out internal organs or yanking out sheets of fat. Many wield knives, and slice and debone pork as it moves along conveyor belts.

While the vote to unionize is likely a good outcome for the workers, unfortunately the animals who are killed at the plant are not given any opportunity to negotiate their fates.

(Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone.)