Union is Misleading Consumers, Hurting Employees and Blocking a Secret-Ballot Vote...

Union is Misleading Consumers, Hurting Employees and Blocking a Secret-Ballot
Vote at Smithfield Plant

RALEIGH, N.C., June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The United Food and Commercial
Workers International Union is giving consumers false information about
Smithfield Foods. The union also is refusing to let the employees vote by
secret ballot on whether they want to be represented by the union.
Responding to the UFCW's announcement of a Washington-area advertising
campaign aimed at Smithfield pork-processing plant in Tar Heel, North
Carolina, Dennis Pittman, Smithfield's Director of Corporate Communications,
said:
"These misleading and deliberately inflammatory ads are a continuation of
the union's pressure tactics against Smithfield. The UFCW's real motive is to
avoid a free, fair, secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor
Relations Board in which employees decide whether they want to be represented
by the union."
Smithfield has repeatedly offered to schedule such an election. The
company has offered to pay half the cost for an independent, outside election
observer, such as President Jimmy Carter's Center in Atlanta. But the UFCW
refuses to agree to the election.
"Instead, the UFCW is giving false information to consumers about the
plant's safety record," Pittman said. "These tactics can only hurt the
employees who work there. We call on the UFCW to stop its pressure campaign.
Let the employees vote."

Pittman added:

-- "Smithfield does not tolerate the use of racial slurs by any employee
or supervisor. Our code of conduct prohibits it, and we will terminate anyone
who violates the code."
-- The Tar Heel plant pays above-average wages and gives all employees
full health-care insurance and benefits including life insurance and help with
college tuition. The company also established a medical clinic at the plant
that provides low-cost doctors' visits and prescriptions to employees, their
families and area residents.
-- The Tar Heel plant has one of the best safety records of any plant in
the industry. In fact, its safety record is as good as or better than
Smithfield's unionized plants.
-- Smithfield is not anti-union. Of the 35,300 employees in Smithfield's
pork operation, 23,800, or 67 percent, are covered by collective bargaining
agreements.
"A consumer boycott will only hurt the employees at Tar Heel and their
families," Pittman said. "If the UFCW truly cares about these employees, it
will let them vote."
SOURCE Smithfield Foods

Dennis Pittman, Director of Corporate Communications, +1-910-876-4776, for
Smithfield Foods