Slaughterhouse loses 300 workers

RALEIGH -- Hundreds of workers at a Smithfield Packing plant in Tar Heel have left their jobs or stopped showing up for work after a crackdown on illegal immigrants at the world's largest hog slaughterhouse.

Many have submitted resignation letters and collected pay for unused vacation, while others identified by the company in November as having unverifiable employment documents quit without notice, company spokesman Dennis Pittman said.

In all, Pittman said, about 300 employees had left the huge plant in Bladen County on their own as of Monday.

"Some of these people had been here seven, eight or nine years. It is certainly a blow to the company," Pittman said. "It's slowing us down some. We've had to work some Saturdays and some overtime. When you have new trainees, it takes some time to get those people caught up."

In November, Smithfield sent letters to 500 to 600 employees whose Social Security numbers, names or other personal information couldn't be verified. The company also fired about 50 workers for providing false information.

The first round

The firings in November spurred a walkout at the plant, as about 1,000 employees -- most of them Hispanic -- left in protest, quickly picking up the support of a union that has tried for years to organize the plant, where Smithfield employs about 5,000 people to slaughter up to 32,000 hogs a day.

Employees were back on the job two days later after Smithfield agreed to rehire the fired workers and meet with each letter recipient, who then had 60 days to verify employment status.

Those grace periods began running out this month. Pittman said about 50 workers have successfully resolved discrepancies and remain employed at the plant. None has been fired, he said.

The process began when federal immigration authorities approached the company after raiding a Virginia plant owned by its parent, Smithfield Foods, company officials have said. Hundreds of workers were identified after Smithfield agreed to an audit of its I-9 tax forms, a requirement to join a voluntary enforcement program offered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Smithfield officials have said they would prefer to keep the employees identified by the audit, but that they must abide by immigration laws. Critics called those claims empty, saying the company has known about the document discrepancies for years.

"Giving things to ICE, the company has power in that," said Leila McDowell, a spokeswoman for the Smithfield Justice Campaign, a union organizing effort. "There is concern that Smithfield is manipulating immigration laws to intimidate workers."

Union accusations

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has been trying to organize the Tar Heel plant, about 80 miles south of Raleigh, for more than a decade. Union officials accuse the company of cooperating with immigration authorities to quell immigrant employees who want better working conditions.

The union also has challenged a Dec. 12 raid that led to the arrest of nearly 1,300 illegal workers at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in six states. Union leaders think the arrests violated the workers' constitutional rights to due process; Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied the charge.

Last month, Smithfield settled a complaint tied to union elections held at the plant in 1993 and 1997. Employees voted against organizing in those elections, although a federal appeals court later found that the company illegally worked to defeat those efforts. The company will pay $1.1 million in back wages, plus interest, to workers fired as part of the dispute under an agreement reached with the National Labor Relations Board.

After the settlement, the company asked the union to schedule a new election at the plant. The union has dismissed the offer, saying that another case of unfair labor practices involving a subcontractor is still pending against Smithfield.