Workers give their accounts to envoy

Smithfield Packing in injury inquiry

WASHINGTON - When Tereza Nieto dreamed of working in North Carolina, she never imagined this: hog carcasses zipping past her inside a chilly factory cooler, a fallen pig, an injured back, the inability to work.

Nieto and a former co-worker testified to a United Nations envoy Wednesday about abuses they say they suffered at Smithfield Packing Co.'s plant in Tar Heel, N.C., about 85 miles southeast of Raleigh. It is the world's largest pork-processing plant.

The women told Special Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante that they were hurt, denied health care they wanted, forced to continue working and, finally, forced out of the company. Both say they can no longer work.

Bustamante, who works on migrant issues for the U.N. Human Rights Council, has been in the United States since April 30 investigating immigrants' rights here. He traveled to the Southwest to visit border crossings, spent time in Texas, Florida and New York, and now is in Washington meeting with officials and migrants, according to the U.N.

Officials at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva could not be reached for comment.

But Smithfield Packing Co. fired back Wednesday, sending letters to the United Nations accusing the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which is trying to organize workers at the company, of spreading disinformation.

It said the union's news release describing the "hearing" was a misrepresentation of Bustamante's work in the United States and asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to disavow the union.

The union has filed numerous complaints against the company and helped organize the trip by Nieto and Guadalupe Valdez to Washington.

The meeting with Bustamante was closed to the news media. But in an interview beforehand, Nieto and Valdez described their jobs at Smithfield.

Nieto, 29, was a single mother of a 1-year-old daughter looking for work. She now is married with a young son as well.

"This is not what I was expecting," she said through an interpreter. "The illusion is to be better in life."

She worked in the cooler, packaging hog carcasses that dangled from an overhead conveyor and moved quickly past the workers.

In December 2004, a hog carcass came loose from its hook. Fearful she would lose a finger re-hooking it, she wedged herself underneath the hog. It fell, and she hurt her back and hand, she said. According to the union, she was diagnosed with a slipped disc.

She said Wednesday that Smithfield told her she was lying about her injury and wasn't hurt. Company officials told her to return to work, she said, and later wouldn't accept an outside doctor's report that she needed to be given light duty.

Valdez, 51, worked on a disassembly line, gutting hogs and flinging chunks of fat over her shoulders into vats behind her. Over time, she said, she developed pain in her hands and arms.

The Smithfield doctor said she had arthritis, Valdez said. An outside doctor diagnosed her with carpal tunnel syndrome. After months of problems at work, she returned with a note from her doctor about her injury.

"That's the day they fired me," Valdez said through an interpreter, crying at the memory. "They didn't want to see me."

Now, she says, she has tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills. The pain in her arms keeps her awake at night.

Both women have filed worker's compensation claims against the company.

Smithfield said in its letters that Valdez's claim was denied because its compensation plan doesn't cover carpal tunnel cases. The company said that Nieto's claim was honored and that she is receiving compensation and benefits. It also said she is welcome to return in a different job but has refused.