“ALLIANCE!”
MARXIST-LENINIST
SPRING 2006
March 15, 2006
An Update on Smithfield
Foods’ Vicious Anti-Unionism in North Carolina
The United Food and Commercial Workers International union
(UFCW) filed a charge over the summer with the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) saying the Smithfield Foods Company violated the National Labor Relations Act by retaliating
against two workers for complaining about unsafe production speed. They worked at a hog processing plant in Tar Heel in Bladen County along the Cape Fear
River in southeastern North Carolina.
The NLRB has also again upheld charges from the previous two union
elections and a violent cleaning contractor dispute. The plant was found to be relatively unsafe in a recent
Department of Labor safety inspection.
These are
the latest charges against the plant, the largest in
the world (a 560,000 square foot facility on an 160 acre campus),
killing about 34,000 pigs a day (33 a minute).
It employs about 5500 to 6000 workers, mostly Latinos (60% of the
workforce according to UFCW estimates), blacks (30-35%), and Lumbee native
people and whites. It is located in an
area with 6% unemployment with Smithfield wages starting at $8.10 dollars an
hour, plus benefits, versus the average area wage of $5-6 dollars. Up to 20% of the workers start as temporary
workers through Labor Ready for half a year, and thus lack benefits and earn
less (from Amnesty International’s Amnesty Magazine). There is also 100% yearly turnover in its
workforce. A former supervisor says
managers don’t follow time clocks and cheat workers out of pay (Amnesty
Magazine). UFCW workers at 19
Smithfield plants have higher wages. In
April 2003 average meatpacking hourly wages (not including poultry, which is
much lower) were $11.59 dollars for killing and $12.71 dollars for processing,
versus the average manufacturing wage of $15.58 dollars (see www.reapinc.org). Wages in the industry fell a lot when processors were merged in
the 80’s. Smithfield was given millions
of dollars of tax breaks by the State to locate here (www.135steward.org).
Smithfield
Packing, Inc. is owned by Smithfield Foods, Inc.,
which operates globally and is the largest pork packer. It is vertically integrated, meaning it
controls the process from hog breeding through pork brand distribution –
“control over [its] pork products from squeal
to meal,” as Smithfield Packing’s President Lewis
Little puts it.
63% of
pork is processed by the top 5 companies.
On average out of every dollar spent by consumers on pork in 1999, 25%
went to farmers and 16% to processors, which may be different now that
integration has increased (Rural Migration News).
Its gross profit in the fiscal year ending May 1, 2005 was $11 billion dollars
and it can kill and process 97,600 pigs a day.
On average it has yielded 26% annual compounded rate of return to its
investors since 1975. It has about
51,290 employees.
UFCW has
1.4 million North American members, of which about 250,000 are in meatpacking
and food processing. About 80% of the
Company is unionized in the USA. The
Union points out that Smithfield is adding 200 union jobs in its Farmland Foods
unit in Denison, Iowa and John Morrell & Company plant in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota, while denying the right to unionize to Tar Heel workers.
The
current Tar Heel unionization campaign
started in 2002. UFCW says that
although most Smithfield plants are unionized the Company is more opposed to a
union here because if a strike occurred the plant would not be able to house or
re-ship all the pigs it receives daily.
UFCW has been trying to unionize the plant periodically since 1994, two
years after its opening.
UFCW says
that during the 1997 campaign the Company told black workers that a union would
replace them with Latinos and told Latinos that they would be reported to
immigration by blacks. This was done in
four trailers brought in for the meetings.
Smithfield threatened to decrease wages and benefits if the plant
unionized and spied upon, harassed, and fired union proponents. UFCW believes this has stopped but Company
meetings are still held separately by race.
The majority of workers were black in 1996 but today Latinos are the
majority. Organizer Jeff Green told Human
Rights Watch (HRW) that it was basically impossible to reach Latino
workers because they were afraid of losing their jobs. UFCW reaches out by offering an immigration
lawyer’s services in the area and supporting events such as the Immigrant
Workers Freedom Ride event in Fayetteville last year. Just before the election someone spray painted “Nigger go home”
on UFCW’s office trailer.
Sherri
Buffkin, former supervisor, testified to the NLRB that she was also
told to increase racial tensions by telling Latinos they would be replaced by
pro-union blacks. The plant was
segregated, with black workers on the kill floor and Latinos in cut and
conversion departments. She was told to
fire union supporters, did so, and then was told to lie to the NLRB or be fired
herself. The Company claims that her
pro-Smithfield affidavits are accurate and that she lied in her testimony. The NLRB found 11 workers were unjustly
fired. Smithfield says that only 11
workers out of the 16,000 who left between 1993 and 1997 claim unjust firings (Rural Migration News). Overtime was not given to pro-union workers and rules were
selectively enforced.
During the
second NLRB unionization election, in August 1997, the local Sheriff deputies
and deputized plant security (the plant has more than a dozen officers) were
there in riot gear. After UFCW lost the
vote (by 63%), Union organizers say managers rioted, racially insulting,
beating, and arresting a pro-union worker and a union organizer. UFCW sued the plant for intimidation. Smithfield was found guilty of discouraging
unionization by threatening to close, threatening pay and benefit cuts if a
union was formed, and by spying upon, harassing, intimidating, disciplining,
firing pro-union workers, and generally threatening retaliation. Smithfield lawyers and witnesses were found
guilty of lying in court proceedings.
In 2002 Chief of Security Danny Priest, also a Sheriff
deputy, was found guilty of violating the Ku Klux
Klan Act of 1871 during the 1997 election. He was fined $755,000 dollars in damages by a jury, later
overturned on a technicality by the Fourth Circuit of Appeals, one of the most
reactionary courts in the country. Some
other Company Police who were involved are still employed as Bladen County
Sheriff deputies. Smithfield Foods is
being sued after a Company Police officer shot a man when off-duty. The lawsuit claims Smithfield was negligent
to have given the defendant a gun because he had fatally shot a suspect while
working as a public police officer.
About 45 prisoners who work at the plant were forced, along with the
other employees, to hear anti-union lectures, but the Company, the local
prison, and the State Attorney General Mike Easley
(Democrat), now Governor, have prevented
legal Union access to these workers up to today.
In 2000
the plant became the only meatpacking plant in the US with an on-site
prison. At least 90 workers have been
detained since 2000. While most had
their charges dropped, they still had to pay lawyer and court costs, UFCW
says. Smithfield let its Special Police
Force status lapse, so now it can only detain people until a deputy comes to
make a formal arrest.
Every
night about 250 workers, from QSI, Inc., are needed to clean the plant. Workers claimed they were being photographed
while working. Workers were fired for trying to leave without following safety
rules. Sometimes they were
rehired. Later there was a dispute
between Smithfield’s Safety Department staff and the other management over non-compliance
with safety rules. A walkout in
November 2003 resulted in an agreement with middle management to pay workers a
dollar more an hour, rehire workers, and stop interference by the three safety
staff. Upper management and Smithfield
refused to allow this and wanted about 7 leading workers fired. Workers protested and tried to walkout. Company police said the INS was outside,
attempted to put a worker in a trash-can, and locked workers in to stop them.
Those who left were illegally fired after being assaulted (Independently Weekly, July 20, 2005). UFCW says that two workers, husband and
wife, were publicly arrested to intimidate others, falsely charged with trying
to burn a trash can, and held for seven hours, during which they couldn’t
contact their children. In April 2005
Smithfield and its cleaning contractor QSI, Inc. were found guilty by the NLRB
of violating workers’ rights by physical assault, threatening violence,
improper arrest of a worker, and threatening arrest by immigration
authorities. In August 2005 the NC Democratic Party called upon Smithfield to
stop using Company police, act lawfully, and to not intimidate and attack its
workers.
In 2000
and 2005 HRW published special reports stating that Smithfield violates its
workers’ rights (see www.smithfieldjustice.org). The report, whose author is also connected
to UFCW, accuses the plant of requiring cutting work too close to other
employees, lengthy hours, and poor training.
The North Carolina Council of Churches denounced
Smithfield for coming to the State so it can treat workers poorly and pay
less. Other supportive groups are the National Baptists Convention USA, the A. Phillip Randolph
Institute, the NAACP, National Black Caucus of State Legislators, Asian Pacific
Labor Association of Legislators, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, LACLA,
United Latinos of the UFCW, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and local North
Carolina groups.
In 2004 Webb Patterson Communications, whose president is
Republican, was brought in to dialogue with local leaders, officially to listen
to their concerns and recommend changes.
A community paper was launched, with anti-union articles on half of the
first edition’s 12 pages. It covers a
four-county area where Smithfield workers live, leading UFCW to suspect Company
backing (March 2004 Witness UFCW
newsletter). UFCW distributes The Truth/La Verdad in the plant.
In 2000 an
NLRB administrative law judge ordered a new election, which Smithfield
appealed. In 2004 the NLRB ordered an
election, which Smithfield appealed to the US Circuit Court of Appeals. The NLRB was told to review its
findings. Still the NLRB, including Bush appointees, unanimously upheld the previous
administrative law judge ruling regarding the 1994 and 1997 campaigns. This included findings that 10 workers were
wrongfully fired, workers were paid more to spy (one worker says she was paid
50% more and didn’t have to work) and point out Union supporters to Company
consultants, Smithfield confiscated literature, prevented workers from
advocating for unionization, and brought in Sheriff deputies in riot gear when
the Reverend Jesse Jackson and other
religious people were leafleting workers.
The 10 workers can get their jobs back and back wages (The Agribusiness Examiner, January 19,
2005).
In December
2005 the NLRB rejected the 2000 decision by an NLRB administrative law judge
about how the new union election was to be conducted. Originally the election was ordered held away from the plant and
union organizers were to be let into the plant, which were extraordinary orders
from the NLRB. Smithfield is still
appealing to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor to the Chair of
Smithfield Foods, Richard J.M. Poulson,
to “review the finding” of violations and “to reconsider the remedies, which we
still believe unfairly allow the union to interfere in our employees’ freedom
of choice” (Agribusiness Center, January
3, 2005) A new election would require 30% of the workforce to sign cards, but
that is difficult because of turnover.
According to the recent HRW report, CEO Joseph
Luter III thinks the NLRB is so biased as to actually be part of
UFCW.
Retaliation for a Spontaneous Safety
Protest
In March
2005 about 80 workers, most of the workers on three loins de-boning production
lines, spontaneously decided to halt work to protest unsafe line speed. These lines worked cutting pork loins from
bones. At that speed workers were
killing and processing up to 2000 pigs an hour, requiring the workers to use
their knives too fast for safety. They
went to human resources to demand either slower speed or the hiring of
additional workers. The Company reduced
the number of lines, later causing unsafe crowding according to UFCW. June 23rd two involved workers
were suspended, allegedly in retaliation for March - Angel Santos Muriel was fired and Jesus
Munoz Marquez is indefinitely suspended.
UFCW has
an online campaign demanding that Angel and Jesus be reinstated at ufcwaction.org/campaign/reinstate_workers/ and
encourages the public to ask Smithfield to respect workers’ rights. The charge will either be dismissed or it
will issue a complaint if Smithfield does not settle the charge. If the complaint is not settled then there
will be a trial under an administrative judge.
In the
spring of 2005 the NC Department of Labor
inspected the plant and fined the Company $23,514 dollars for 45 major
violations and 9 lesser violations. The
violations included emergency exits that were not fully accessible, raised
cutting platforms without guard rails, lack of safety goggles for employee
protection from strong chemicals, a worker who was repairing a running machine,
improper shielding of saws, and workers risking exposure to disease while
washing gloves. The Department and the Company thought these were good results
for a large plant, while Lane Compa, a
Cornell professor and author of the 2005 HRW report, and the UFCW believe the
plant could be safer. Smithfield
emphasizes that the violations were not called “willful” and that many were
resolved quickly (Raleigh News&Observer). In the past there have been violations, such
as an impeded exit.
OSHA found
that a worker who died in November 2003 was killed in part because of poor
training and “lack of accountability.” In general Smithfield workers have
complained about production speed, work station designs that cause strain, poor
training, improper treatment at the in-plant clinics, and routine denial of
workers’ compensation (according to UFCW’s pamphlet
The Case Against Smithfield).
Smithfield
says that in the past few years there has been a 31% decline in workplace
injuries and a State Labor Department letter pointed out that there are fewer
ergonomic injuries. Jackie Nowell, Director of UFCW’s occupational and health office finds it
suspicious that in 2002 Smithfield claimed only 425 injuries in Tar Heel, 50%
less than the national average. Workers
receive unused workers’ compensation as bonuses at the end of the year, and if
they do claim compensation for injuries they are allegedly often then
investigated for immigration violations.
The health insurance is also too expensive for many, at $17 dollars a
year (Amnesty Magazine). On the other
hand, Compa says these injuries are not well-regulated and are hidden by
business. The Company’s Code of
Business Conduct says “Smithfield is committed to ensuring the well-being of
our workers,” neighbors, and environment, and expects the Code and laws to be
followed (www.smithfieldfoods.com).
Things are the Same in Wilson, North
Carolina
Smithfield’s
Tar Heel activities were repeated in the first half of 1999 in Wilson when UFCW
tried to unionize a factory that processes ham for retail (see the HRW
report). According to HRW, 25-30% of
the workers are single mothers who use government welfare programs. Management told these workers that the Union
would make them strike, sacrificing their government assistance. At least one worker was offered unspecified
benefits if she supported management.
Neutral workers were given anti-union lectures without the presence of
union supporters. In January 2000 the
NLRB agreed that Smithfield made threats that unionization would result in
closure of the plant, layoffs, or more discipline, and that it would be useless
to unionize. Workers were questioned
about their views, spied upon, and prohibited from discussing their current
salaries. Five workers were fired for
being union supporters. Before the vote
Smithfield invited the mayor of Wilson and two city council members on to the
premises (which union organizers were barred from), where they passed out
anti-union leaflets. These Wilson
County Right to Work Committee leaflets said past plant closings were caused by
union organizing and they pointed out that Wilson County had 11%
unemployment. Right to work means a
unionized shop cannot force new workers to join the union.
The Union
and supporters have held Justice @ Smithfield events in Atlanta, Georgia,
Raleigh, Fayetteville, Durham, Chapel Hill, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Orlando,
Florida, and elsewhere. UFCW provides speakers and its video Witness,
Justice @ Smithfield. For more
information see www.smithfieldjustice.org
(email: Smithfield@ufcw.org). UFCW encourages people to contact:
Joseph W.
Luter, III
CEO and
Chairman of the Board
Smithfield
Foods, Inc.
200
Commerce Street
Smithfield,
Virginia 23430
or
757-365-3000 or information@smithfieldfoods.com.
__________________________________________________END______________________________________________
2. Green Monopoly Capitalism? Environmentalism at Smithfield Foods.
Lately
Smithfield Foods, a huge meat producing corporation known for severe violations
of its employees’ rights in North Carolina, seems to have turned over a new, ‘green leaf’, winning several awards for
improving its operations. A Company web
page says that it’s “highest priorities are safe food, the humane treatment of
our animals and environmental stewardship” and that it wants to move “well
beyond compliance in stewardship responsibilities.”
Previously
Smithfield was allowed to regulate itself in North Carolina after violating the
Clean Water Act (CWA) about 7,000 times
along the Pagan River in Virginia and
fined $12.6 million dollars, one of the biggest CWA penalties ever imposed
(later reduced to $600,000 dollars).
Smithfield says it was not at fault in the violations and that the Pagan
River was not impacted. Since citizens
groups and the Federal government forced the Company to send its waste to a
municipal treatment plant, instead of into the River, water quality has
improved according to the State. In
2000 an environmental compliance committee was created by the Company. Later the former director of Virginia’s
Department of Environmental Quality, Dennis Treacy,
was hired as Vice President of Environmental,
Community, and Government Affairs in late 2001. Speaking of Human
Rights Watch’s (HRW) recent
labor issues report he told The Virginian-Pilot
that
“We look at it as outdated, with no attempt
to reflect what goes on there today. It
has changed dramatically in that time”
and he has
criticized Smithfield’s environmental critics as well.
In 2005
Smithfield was praised by the Hampton Roads Sanitation
District for having no major violations, waste spills, or out of date
regulatory paperwork. The Company
received 8 awards from the State for going beyond various Virginian and Federal
environmental laws in spring 2005.
In 2004
and August 2005 three Smithfield shareholders
sponsored a shareholder resolution requiring the Company to compile a yearly
report on the environmental impact of hog farms it owns and contracts
with. These shareholders are Amalgamated Bank (owned by the union UNITE-HERE,
the only US bank of its kind) with 26,204 shares, the Nathan Cummings Foundation with 23,200 shares,
and the Sierra Club, with 220 shares.
Management believes its annual report on the hog farms it owns, a third of its
2250 pig suppliers, is good enough. It alleges that more reporting would be a
burden on contract farms. The three
shareholders say the current reporting is good, but not enough and that
environmental liabilities will hurt profits in the long run. In 2004 20% of shareholders supported the
proposal and 10% abstained. In 2005
about 1 in 4 voted for the resolution.
Last
summer the Tar Heel plant was certified as meeting the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 14001
standard in the summer of 2004 and planned to have most of its plants complying
by the end of 2004. ISO 14001
certification means that a company is verified as having studied and
implemented procedures to manage its affect on the environment in a range of
areas. This is the first large meat
processing plant to earn the certification.
Smithfield uses the Internet to make it easier for other businesses to
follow Tar Heel’s example. The EPA
praises the effort, and the American Meat Institute’s related industry
environmental stewardship goals.
In 2001
the Company’s hog breeding subsidiary, Murphy-Brown,
LLC, was the first livestock company to earn an ISO
certification. This effort involved 700
employees at 150 facilities. Now all
Company hog farms have ISO certification.
Murphy-Brown also developed an Integrated Land Management Program, which
Smithfield describes as conserving wildlife and environmental values while also
managing livestock operations. In 2003 Murphy-Brown and the government of North
Carolina jointly created a free online program to help livestock growers
implement an Environmental Management System (EMS) similar to Murphy-Brown’s
ISO certified EMS. The Tar Heel plant’s
EMS unit won the Company’s President’s Award for exceptional environmental
management in 2004.
In 2004
the Environmental Protection Agency praised Smithfield’s efforts. The EPA’s
Chesapeake Bay program gave an award for excellence to subsidiary Gwaltney of Smithfield. This was in recognition of Gwaltney’s wastewater treatment
improvements that reduced nutrient pollution of waterways and saved 10,000
gallons of water a year. In September
Gwaltney of Smithfield, Gwaltney of Portsmouth, and Smithfield Transportation
received silver environmental excellence awards for large manufacturers from
the Governor of Virginia, and Smithfield packing won a bronze award. November 4, 2005 48 Smithfield facilities
were recognized for excellence in environmental management by an industry
group, the American Meat Institute.
This was out of 147 facilities recognized in four categories. Smithfield, including the Tar Heel facility,
received all of the highest level awards given, 38 in all, and 10 in the second
highest category.
Large-scale
hog farming puts tens of thousands of tons of excess nutrients into waterways,
resulting in fish kills from eutrophication, encouraging the poisonous Pfisteria dinoflagellate
microorganism, causing air pollution, and polluting wells. Smithfield claims that factory hog farming
does not pollute the environment significantly, as an example citing the very high
quality of the Black River in North Carolina.
According to the Company, storing hog waste in open lagoons and spraying
waste on fields is not an environmental threat. The problem is that these systems pollute when used too
intensively. For example, in 2002
Smithfield was fined $10,373.96 dollars for buying pigs from a prohibited hog
farm, which was prohibited because it broke State environmental
regulations. Smithfield said it
violated the prohibition accidentally.
During the very wet spring and summer of 2003 Murphy-Brown had to
continuously operate waste disposal equipment when conditions were better for
spreading the slurry. Smithfield does
not say how likely a waste spill was.
Continuous operation is now their standard procedure. This could be because the operations are
becoming too large to use the old waste disposal system.
Nonetheless,
since 2000 Smithfield has supported research at NC
State University by donating $15 million dollars to develop
economically feasible alternative waste disposal systems, and as of 2004 two
met the Company’s “technical performance criteria” (from the Company
website). There are 14 pilot projects
currently, and a report will be released December 2005. The Virginian-Pilot points out that this support
is part of a $65 million dollar settlement in 2000 after contamination by hog
farms during the 1999 Hurricane Floyd
disaster.
Because of
the economics of hog farming and the giant size of hog buyers such as
Smithfield Foods, small growers are pushed out of the business unless they
contract with a large corporation and enlarge their operations. In 1983 there
were 24,000 hog farmers in North Carolina, growing 2 million pigs, while in
1997 only 4,000 growers remained. In
1997 there were 10 million pigs in North Carolina versus a human population of
7 million. This is more than can be
killed and processed within the State.
There are fears that small growers will vanish in eastern Europe also as
Smithfield grows there.
Iowa
has a law preventing corporations from owning or managing livestock
to protect independent livestock farmers but Smithfield has worn the State down
and now has a loophole for itself. In 1999 Iowa tried to prevent Smithfield
from buying Murphy Family Farm, the
second largest American hog grower and later claimed Smithfield was trying to
circumvent the law through a fake sale.
In 2002 Smithfield sued Iowa to repeal the law. The State lost the suit, but the case was to
be reconsidered this March following changes to the law to keep it from
violating the Federal regulation of interstate commerce.
September
16th Iowa agreed to allow Smithfield to violate the law for a decade
in return for several concessions.
Smithfield agreed to a contract producers’ bill of rights making
contracts public, allowing associations, allowing contractors’ liens, and
protecting whistleblowers. Collective
bargaining is allowed and Smithfield agrees to negotiate in good faith. The Company is prohibited from retaliating
for exercise of these provisions, requiring additional capital investment over
what is in a contract unless compensation is given, and requiring binding
arbitration of contract disputes.
According to Company Executive Vice President
and Advisor to the Chair of Smithfield Foods, Inc. Richard J.M. Poulson
“Smithfield
growers already have those rights. We
do not mistrust our farmers”.
(Iowa Farmer Today, September 21,
2005).
Smithfield
is prohibited from finishing pigs for slaughter itself in Iowa for the next 5
years and it has to buy 25% of the pigs it kills in Iowa from independent Iowa
farmers and it will keep these plants open with 90 day notice of closure. $100,000 dollars will be given each year to
Iowa State University for 10 years to train producers in good environmental
practices and another $100,000 dollars per year to fund grants to improve Iowa
hog farming. Producers can enforce this
contract in court for damages (see www.cnmpwatch.com). Iowa Senator
Tom Harkin (D) cast the decision as necessary, because the Federal
government has been lax on enforcing interstate commerce laws such as
anti-trust laws and the Packers and Stockyard Act. Poulson told the Iowa Farmer Today that
“Frankly,
a good settlement is more satisfying than a court decision. We have to do this together”
(September
21 article).
Smithfield
is a meatpacking company and so it draws fire for factory farming and how it
treats its livestock. The Company has
an Animal Welfare Policy and Animal Welfare
Management system to ensure that animals’ “basic needs” are
provided, as well as keeping them safe, comfortable and healthy” (Company
animal welfare Q & A webpage). It created a formal policy following
increasing concern by shareholders, consumers, regulators, and the public, it
says. It denies that animal welfare was
worse before the Policy. The Management
System is audited by Stan Curtis
(University of Illinois) and Temple Grandin (University
of Colorado), as well as by the US Department of Agriculture’s Process Verified
program. Smithfield claims this is a
model policy for the industry. The
Company does not take responsibility for how its animals are treated by contractors
“hired by others to transport their animals to our plants,” but will help
euthanize animals if asked.
Recently
513 pigs died from the heat at a Murphy-Brown hog farm in southeastern Virginia
after a storm caused a blackout. Pigs
only sweat through their nostrils, so they are very heat sensitive, and
Smithfield’s breed of hogs might be extremely sensitive. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
publicized the deaths after being informed by an employee. A nearby plant serving Murphy-Brown has fans
that come on a certain temperature and curtains if there is no electricity. The farmer interviewed by The Virginian-Pilot
of Norfolk said
“The pigs
are in close confinement. They have
enough room to turn around and maybe lie down.
But they cannot take stress.
They’re babied.”
PETA wants documents on Smithfield’s pre-slaughter
handling to be released. It refuses to
release information but says that it acts lawfully. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
pigs use fat on their backs to regulate temperature, but Smithfield has
engineered pigs with very little fat to increase profit, leaving the pigs very
temperature sensitive. He says this has
“drastically diminished the quality” and requires adding liquid to cook the
resulting pork (reprinted on Animal Welfare Institute website www.awionline.org).
Medical Antibiotics in Food
Working
with Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club,
Physicians for Social Responsibility, and other groups, Smithfield
has agreed to reduce the use of medical antibiotics in raising pork for food
service company Compass Group North America, Inc.. Antibiotics are fed to livestock to increase
growth and control disease, but this reduces their medical effectiveness
because bacteria evolve resistance to the drugs. Smithfield now reports the quantity of feed antibiotics bought
per pound of pork sold to consumers and was previously reducing antibiotic
use. Medical antibiotics will not be
used for promoting growth in hogs and antibiotic use will be reduced further.
Large-scale
meat processing has increased food-borne disease by 300% in the USA and 500% in
Britain (ecomall.com, January 2004). In
2003 a study conducted by a sociologist at NC State University found that
Americans trust small family farms and American products, and say they would
pay more for food grown in the US and with sustainable practices (The Agribusiness Examiner, report available at
sa.ncsu.edu/global-food).
Smithfield
mainly packages pork, but it also has poultry and now beef operations. It formed a 50% partnership with Contigroup Companies, Inc. in feedlots. Contigroup is also the second biggest
American pork producer. In October 2004
it bought cattle feedlots from ConAgra Foods, Inc. and earlier bought two beef
processors. Pork sales benefited from
the recent Canadian mad cow disease discoveries (see Alliance! October 2004). According to Company
President and Chief Operating Officer Larry
Pope, beef is open to profitable vertical integration, although
maybe not as much integration as pork, while chicken is not very profitable, so
Smithfield won’t expand there (interview in The
National Provisioner). By
increasing control of beef from the raising of cattle to processing, it could
improve safety according to the Top Producer.
In 2004 the
Company gave politicians $117,720 dollars (from institutional sources and
employees), second only to the American Meat
Institute for contributions from this industry. Smithfield itself cannot give donations, but
employees can give $2000 dollars per candidate or $5000 to a political action
committee (which can give that amount to a candidate). Smithfield’s 2004 donations were mostly to Republicans, about seven times more money than to Democrats,
with a focus on what the The Virginian-Pilot calls “regional lawmakers,” and Midwestern
politicians, especially “those with ties to agribusiness” and from places with
Smithfield facilities.
Environmental
regulations, livestock feed imports, and biodiesel were concerns of Company
lobbying. $32,500 dollars were given to House candidates, the most, $9000
dollars to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). The only House Democrat to receive funding
was Charles W. Stenholm, (D-TX), the
highest Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. In Senate elections
$32,000 dollars were given to Republicans.
The highest amount, $9000 dollars was given to Christopher S. “Kit” Bond (R-MO), chairman of the
subcommittee overseeing the EPA and a Senate Agriculture Committee member. Conservative
Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC), who was elected Senator in that election,
received $5000 dollars. His relatively
conservative Democratic challenger, Erskine Bowles,
received $2000 dollars, as did Democrats Evan Bayh
in Indiana and Ben Nelson of
Nebraska. In the 1996 election Governor Jim Hunt (D) received the most pork
industry money.
When the
plant was first proposed the director of the state Division of Environmental
Management opposed its being sited in the Cape Fear River basin but Governor James Martin (R ) waived an
environmental impact statement and let it be built. State legislator Cynthia Watson (a
Republican from Duplin County) criticized Smithfield – then the Company spent
up to $510,000 dollars a week for two years and got her voted out of
office.
Smithfield Expansion in Poland and Romania
CEO and
Chairman Joseph W. Luter III calls
eastern Europe, especially Poland, Romania, and Ukraine the future “Iowa of
Europe” and Europe’s “bread basket” for food production with the post-Cold War
reunion of eastern and western Europe.
The Company plans to focus on international expansion, especially in
Poland and Romania. In the fiscal year
2004 Smithfield only made 8.4% of its sales internationally, but that is 22%
above the previous year (The Virginian-Pilot). It sold its Canadian unit, but continues to
operate in Mexico (two joint operations with Morson), Brazil, the UK, France
(Jean Caby Group), Spain (Campofrio), Poland (Animex, producer of Krakus and
Morliny ham), Romania, and China (AFG China).
France and Spain are currently the largest foreign operations. UFCW
has begun responding to the transnational nature of Smithfield by organizing a
meeting of unions from North America, France, and Spain in Paris in
mid-October. They plan to organize more
regular consultations. A Solidarnosc union Meat Packing Division
delegation visited Tar Heel in 2004.
Many of the French and Polish facilities are organized.
Smithfield
controls 5% of Polish production with 29 farms producing 1.3 million pigs a
year (Chicago Tribune). Poles
eat 84.3 pounds of pork a year per capita, the most in Europe and higher than
the American figure of 64.9 pounds. Animex is Smithfield’s main Polish subsidiary, a
former state company founded in 1951 and bought by Smithfield in 1999. It has
5000 workers, about $410 million dollars in sales, and sold 432 million pounds
on meat in fiscal year 2004.
Poland was
Smithfield’s main focus for the last five years, but now it plans to invest
$800 million dollars in Romanian expansions and $55 million dollars in
contracts with Romanian hog and feed producers (the Daily
News of Newport, Virginia).
Romania has cheap land and grain costs, very low wages, weak
environmental laws, high corruption, and it is scheduled to join the EU in
2007, making sales to western Europe easier (Poland joined in 2004). Luter says Romania is appealing because
unlike Poland
“there is no developed hog industry,” so “You
don’t have that constituency…that is frightened of efficiencies and our lower
costs” (The National Provisioner);
It’s
American rivals are also lacking. In
2004 Smithfield bought Comtim Group SRL,
a small vertically integrated Romanian company growing 200,000 pigs a year and
owning two processing plants, for $83 million dollars. It also acquired a 50%
share in a local distribution firm owning a cold storage facility and a Danube
River port. It wants to be able to
process 6 million pigs a year within a decade.
An Illinois farmer and President of the
American Corn Growers Association touring Romania for a farm out-contractor
told the Journal Star of Peoria that
“there’s
something wrong with wiping out the local infrastructure to get rid of
competition,” which he says the Company did here by closing small processing
plants. “It’s the small producer that
will be hurt,” he said, referring to Romanian small peasant production, similar
to the “highly fragmented” state of Polish agriculture, as Smithfield’s Polish
Operations webpage describes it.
Luter told
The Virginian-Pilot “It’s a golden
opportunity, and we’re going to be extremely aggressive.”
Poland may
offer a vision of Romanian hog farming’s future under Smithfield’s
influence. Many Poles worry that
Smithfield will proletarianize or drive
off family farmers. Of Poland’s two
million farms, the EU says only 3% are profitable, and up to date machinery is
mainly limited to former state farms.
The EU’s European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development finds that Smithfield is complying with EU laws in
Poland and the Bank is working with two Polish banks to loan $100 million dollars
to Animex.
Smithfield
counters the argument of proletarianization by saying that its 8 Polish
processors buy 70% of their animals from independent sources and that hog
prices are higher than ever while a government agronomist says cheap labor and low
wages mean small growers have the advantage (Fortune
International (European Edition).
The Company says contract hog farmers potentially get a bonus of “up to
13% higher than the base price for leaner, higher yielding hogs.” Smithfield
says it is helping modernize and improve efficiency in Polish agriculture and
has created 41 “buying stations” where about “14,000 smaller farmers can
readily market their hogs.”
According
to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the small
slaughterhouses of Poland’s West Pomerania region have been driven out of
business and the slaughterhouses the Company owns will not handle hogs from
small farmers. Suppliers receive
payment within two weeks from delivery, while before Smithfield farmers usually
received payment 30 to 60 days later.
The Company itself receives payment from sales up to 30 to 45 days after
selling. It also says it is committed
to Poland, not pulling out after initial losses from Animex, now having more
than $240 million dollars at risk in Poland, and having saved Animex’s 7810
plus jobs. In Wolsztyn four farmers
were tried for alleged Luddite resistance - trying to torch a neighboring
Smithfield contractor’s farm.
As
Smithfield pursues its globalization plan, there continue to be allegations of
polluting and unsafe activities at its eastern European facilities. “An underutilized collective farm” in
Wieckowice, in West Pomerania west of Warsaw, was acquired as a hog breeding
farm. 12,000 to 17,000 pigs were brought in, under cover of darkness. The plant is only permitted 500 pigs and 500
cows according to Kennedy. The resulting hill of manure (Kennedy says it was
150 meters long, 4 m high, and 50 m wide, which Smithfield covered while he was
there) polluted the groundwater and a local swimming area, and caused vomiting
and fainting at a school 40 or 100 yards away.
Smithfield says its complies with EU waste disposal regulations.
Near
another plant people also got rashes from the fumes. Management ignored the local government’s orders to move the pile
for 6 months. In Sedziny a facility
with a permit for 1000 cattle had 4500 pigs instead. Health spas in Polczyn Zdroj, which has been there for four
centuries, and Goldap are being affected by Smithfield pollution. The Wieckowice facility once employed 100
(in a village of 700 people), but only 10 when it was privatized (which was
before Smithfield bought it). The
village now has 40% unemployment. One
resident is a night guard, but the local owners are unknown. Three Animex farms near Goldat employed 60
when they were bought, but now employ 7 after automation. The Company offered about $2500 dollars to
buy new windows for the Wieckowice school, but this was refused. Allegedly the woman who was mayor for 35
years resigned after intimidation.
After protests the number of pigs was reduced, the pigs were given straw
bedding (instead of having no bedding at all), and a veterinarian was put in
charge. The Company denies it gave in
to pressure and villagers still feel the farm is too big.
Robert
F. Kennedy, Jr. and others snuck into a new farm in Szczecenik in
northeast Poland and found bad conditions.
Kennedy says the 5000 pigs there had little space and no straw
flooring. 20 dead pigs were in a bin
that had been empty the night before.
Cement waste storage pools had overflown into a frozen lake. Treacy
denies this and the Company is sueing Kennedy for slander in a Polish
court. The plant is required to
employee 10 locals and instead employs none, but 44 had worked there prior to
the open Polish counterrevolution (see Robert Kennedy Jr. article at www.awionline.org).
In the spring of 2005 there was a scandal after workers at the
processing plant Constar SA of Starachowice
were filmed scrapping mold off sausages to be sold by retailers.
A recent
Agricultural Ministry survey found that all 14 Smithfield facilities and the
two owned by subsidiaries were in violation of veterinary, health, or
construction laws. Kennedy says the
Polish national government supports the Company and that any fines that are
imposed are on the level of “a few hundred dollars.” The mayor of Wierzchowo, about one hundred miles north of
Wieckowice permitted two large facilities after his wife was given about $4000
dollars to do the environmental impact study.
In one town the governor did not permit Smithfield’s facility, but was
overridden by the environmental ministry.
Thanks to
Poland’s small farming, it has 50,000 pairs of endangered white storks, 25% of
the population, many of them nesting on farm building roofs. This is more than remain in Western Europe,
for example only 6 pairs remain in Denmark.
Other species are probably also benefited by, or can survive,
traditional Polish practices.
Smithfield
has made improvements, which should be applauded. But can it all around and always be socially and environmentally
responsible - while also maximizing investor profits - as it is required to do
by law and by the hard laws of capitalist relations? Can it safeguard the environment and health at all of its
facilities, foreign and domestic, while sometimes violently oppressing workers,
juicing politics with contributions, and using its huge profits to lobby
against community demands and independent government regulation?
As Karl Marx pointed out in Capital, the need for profit drives business
in general to try to bypass any laws diminishing that profit, especially if
those profits are large. It is the
purpose of a corporation to make profit, and while might be a good steward of the
environment if it is profitable or inexpensive and good for public relations,
it is not meant or designed for conservation.
For more
background on how Smithfield illustrates monopoly capitalism, see the Alliance!
article available online at www.allianceml.com/paper/2004/Carolinas.html.
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