The news of the first Collective Agreement of the Smithfield Foods workers employed at the Tar Heel, North Carolina, pork facility arrived in July.  Tar Heel is a small town located in the rural area of North Carolina, United States, home to this slaughterhouse where 5,000 workers process over 32,000 hogs a day. SIREL dialogued with Mark Lauritsen, National Director of the Food, Processing, Packing and Manufacturing Division of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, an IUF affiliate representing workers of Canada and the US.

- We know of a long standing struggle of the Smithfield Foods Tar Heel workers...

-The Tar Heel workers have been attempting to organize a union for over 17 years at this North Carolina facility.  In other times it was very cantankerous, but the end result was that these workers had a fair process of selecting a union and the employers sat down and bargained a very good contract through very professional negotiations.

- What’s the meaning and significance of this contract?

- The significance of this agreement is that this is the largest pork processing facility in the world.  The workers there now know that they have a voice and their voice can be heard to know what happens to jobs there and to pork workers throughout the country, be it Smithfield, JBS- Friboi* or any other company to improve their working conditions  So, a lot of results of what happened there is going to have an impact on every meat packing worker in the United States and throughout the world because Smithfield is a global company.

The voice on the job is what adds a significant impact for those 5,000 Tar Heel workers through their union.

The other impact is that it brings the Tar Heel, North Carolina facility into line with the rest of the industry with respect to wages and benefits, so they will be at par with everybody else in the industry.  They will not mean a pressure for other pork processing workers to push wages down because that plant is now at par.

Another big important factor is that the contract is going to have an impact, not only for Tar Heel Smithfield workers. Now workers have a voice when it comes to safety in the workplace and the working conditions that affect them everyday in the shop floor.  When the worker identifies a dangerous condition there will be a committee in place to work with management and everyone will have a voice to address the problem, be it a mechanical problem, an ergonomic problem or otherwise. There will be a mechanism in place to improve the safety of the workers there.  Again, Tar Heel being the largest pork plant of the world, making this plant safer will have an impact throughout the country and throughout the world.

- What is your final message?

- The message we can send to the workers throughout the world  is not only for Smithfield workers but for all food processing workers, and it is that we appreciate everything they have done in the past to help UFCW through the IUF.  And we are looking forwards to work with them to help them gain to get respect in the workplace no matter in what country they are in or which company they work for.