Thread: NC: Immigration Officials Arrest 21 at Smithfield

This story's posted on cattlenetwork.com

http://www.fayobserver.com/article_ap?id=99137

Published on Thursday, January 25, 2007



After immigration arrests, hundreds skip work at hog plant


The Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C.
Production stalled at the world's largest hog slaughterhouse Thursday after hundreds of employees failed to show up for work, a day after immigration officials arrested 21 workers inside the plant.

Officials at Smithfield Foods Inc. said news of Wednesday's arrests spread quickly among plant employees, and most members of a cleaning crew did not come to work overnight. That forced workers who arrived in the morning to clean the massive plant, halting the morning's production.

"It was down considerably. We were so far behind because of getting started so late," Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said. "There were several hundred people who didn't show up."

About 5,000 employees process up to 32,000 hogs daily at the plant in Tar Heel, a small town about 85 miles southeast of Raleigh.

The arrests and Thursday's slowdown again exposed the rift between the company and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has been trying for more than a decade to organize the plant.

Pittman angrily blamed union organizers for Thursday's disruption, insisting they told the cleaning crew that immigration officials were waiting inside. He said the company spent most of Thursday trying to persuade Hispanic workers who stayed home to return to work, an effort that included placing advertisements on a Spanish language radio station.

"All those people lost a day's wage," Pittman said. "It's just ludicrous. The truth has absolutely no meaning to them (union organizers). Whatever lies or deception they have to go through to get their message out, they think is fine."

Eduardo Pena, a local organizer with the union, said workers came to the union seeking information about Wednesday's arrests.

"The workers were calling each other. The wife of one of the workers who was picked up started calling his co-workers saying, 'Don't go to work, immigration officials are there,'" Pena said. "I don't have that kind of network."

The workers arrested Wednesday, whose names and ages weren't released, were escorted from their jobs to an upstairs conference room, where they were interviewed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. An ICE spokeswoman said they were arrested on administrative immigration charges, which can include being in the country illegally or overstaying a work visa.

In November, the union quickly backed about 1,000 workers who staged a walkout after Smithfield fired about 50 people in a crackdown on undocumented workers.

The company had reviewed its employment records on the advice of ICE, which had raided a Smithfield plant in Virginia and arrested several undocumented workers. The company found about 500 to 600 workers at the North Carolina plant had unverifiable information.

Employees returned to work two days later after Smithfield officials agreed to give the fired workers and those with unverifiable information 60 days to get their identification documents in order.

The union also helped spark a small walkout on Martin Luther King Jr. Day after plant officials declined to designate it as a paid holiday.

"There were several hundred people who didn't show up."

Looks like Dennis still has several hundred illegals.

Pittman angrily blamed union organizers for Thursday's disruption, insisting they told the cleaning crew that immigration officials were waiting inside.

Dennis, don't blame the union. If your workers were legal, they would have worked.

'Don't go to work, immigration officials are there,'

Good, keep spreading the word.

The company found about 500 to 600 workers at the North Carolina plant had unverifiable information.

Sounds like that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Oh, the injustice of it all. Where's the Red Cross, Salvation Army, United Way, Catholic Church and El Pubelo

What a way to run a business & a country. Your cleaning crew doesn't
show up because they are told ICE is in the plant & the union organizer
is blamed. If this kind of story doesn't get people up in arms, then
Ben Franklin was right to suspect we wouldn't keep the republic we
were given.

dem4labor,

These so called union organizers in a lot of cases have no idea what they are doing. They just don't like the fact that the ilegals are beign arrested so they tell the employees to not show up... The "organizers" are individuals pretending to know what a union is and they are giving instructions based on emotion. They are not negotiators. Also, it's people collecting dues from illegal aliens, which they can't protect or represent. I think anyone collecting union dues from illegal aliens is a crook and he's selling a false sense of security.

Dixie

Production stalled at the world's largest hog slaughterhouse Thursday after hundreds of employees failed to show up for work, a day after immigration officials arrested 21 workers inside the plant.

Just proves what I said earlier in this thread!

MW wrote:

Hmmm.........what kind of game is being played now? How do you go from "500-600 workers at the North Carolina plant who had unverifiable information" to only 21 arrest. Are they trying to tell us that almost 500 of those folks originally identified as having no verifiable information now have it? I don't think so!!!

IMHO, ICE is bowing under pressure and is lessening what I thought was becoming a more pro-active position on enforcement against illegal immigrants and the companies that hired them. Trust me, the plant has more than 21 illegal immigrants working there. Seems Smithfield was only prepared to give up 21 illegals. ICE should not take Smithfield's word on how many illegals they have - they should be raiding the plant and rounding up ALL illegals!

One has to wonder why Smithfield's not receiving the same treatment as Swift. We all know Smithfield is full of illegal immigrants - they certainly have a lot more than the 21 that were arrested. I'm extremely disappointed that ICE has chosen to ignore the hundreds of other illegals at the plant.