BoatBanter.com - Just in Time for Christmas...

Jim wrote:
Boater wrote:

SMITHFIELD WORKERS FINALLY WIN UNION: After 16 long years, Smithfield
workers finally got their union Thursday. “We are thrilled,” said Ann
Simmons, a veteran of 13 years at the Smithfield Packing plant in Tar
Heel, North Carolina. “This moment has been a long time coming. We
stuck together, and now we have a say on the job.” The 2041 to 1879
vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers International
Union (UFCW) puts an end to a 16-year battle by workers to organize
that included a history of worker intimidation and legal maneuvering
by Smithfield and worker solidarity campaigns in DC and dozens of
other cities across the country. “This was a big election for our
union,” UFCW Local 400 President C. James Lowthers told UNION CITY!
Friday. “It is always good to see the success of new strategies within
UFCW and the labor movement to improve the lives of workers.” “This is
a great victory for the Tar Heel workers,” says UFCW Director of
Organizing Pat O’Neill. “I know they are looking forward to sitting
down at the bargaining table with Smithfield to negotiate a contract.”
Workers at 26 Smithfield-owned facilities around the country already
have UFCW representation.
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Worker intimidation is putting it mildly. :)

Typically, employees at these southern food processing plants are not
organizing so much for substantial wage increases, but for safer
working conditions and for decent treatment as human beings.

About 16 years ago in North Carolina, 25 workers were killed and
another 50 were severely injured in a chicken processing plant fire.
The doors of the plant were padlocked once the workers were inside at
their stations on their shifts. The plant owners claimed they
padlocked the doors to prevent vandalism and theft.

When I was a college kid working summer jobs in New Haven, I was lucky
enough to get employment at the Shick Razor Company in Milford. Big
plant, no theft. Company policy was to sell packs of razor blades to
employees at a nickel a pack, the actual cost in those days of
manufacture.

You never mention working at your father's boat dealership during your
college summer breaks. That's really odd.

His father probably took him out back and beat his ass and told him if
he ever tried to unionize his workers again, Harry would not be able to
write with either hand.