Corporate executives have long used intimidation and thuggery to try to beat back organizing campaigns by unions, environmentalists, farmers, consumers, and others. But now, at least one corporation is moving from goon tactics… to tactical goofiness.
Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pig processor, has a long and sorry record of anti-union nastiness, especially at its massive slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina. It has been cited by a federal appeals court for using “intense and widespread coercion” to keep its labor force from joining the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Enjoying Hightower's work? Join us over at our new home on Substack:
With brute force not working, Smithfield recently unleashed its legal dogs on UFCW, trying to use an anti-Mafia racketeering law to stop the union from speaking out about the labor, environmental, and safety issues inside the plant. The goofball corporate claim is that by issuing press releases, organizing protests, and lobbying public officials, the union is engaging in extortion to force Smithfield to unionize. One of the corporate lawyers cried that what UFCW is doing is “actually the same thing as what John Gotti used to do.”
Actually, esquire, it’s not at all the same. Did you miss “The Godfather” movies? Instead of issuing press releases, the Mafia tended to favor kneecapping, machine-gunning, strangling, and other more robust actions against its opponents. Besides, doesn’t Smithfield itself issue press releases and hire lobbyists? It’s called free speech.
But today’s corporate elites don’t believe in free speech for their opponents, and they now have right-wing judges in place who’re willing to suspend America’s hard-won Constitutional rights in order to sanction the actions of a rising corporate autocracy. Smithfield’s lawsuit is not just goofy, it’s dangerous… and un-American. To learn more, go to www.smithfieldjustice.com.
“A Corporate View of Mafia Tactics: Protesting, Lobbying, and Citing Upton Sinclair,” The New York Times, February 5, 2008
Special rate for original Lowdown readers