Smithfield workers ratify contract at Iowa plant

[Omaha Steve]

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695239698,00.html

By Daniel Goldstein
Bloomberg News
Published: Monday, Dec. 31, 2007 12:02 a.m. MST

Workers at Smithfield Foods Inc.'s John Morrell pork plant in Sioux City, Iowa, have ratified a 4 1/2- year labor contract that provides increases in wages and sick pay, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Production workers will get a $1.50-an-hour raise over the length of the contract, with maintenance workers getting $1.65, the union said Friday in a statement. The average wage is about $14 an hour, said Jim Papian, a UFCW spokesman in Washington. Almost 1,000 employees voted to ratify the contract, which was reached after more than a year of negotiations, the union said.

The Smithfield, Va.-based company is the world's biggest pork processor and owns Circle Four Farms in Utah. The UFCW remain at odds over the union's attempt to organize workers at Smithfield's largest plant, in Tar Heel, N.C., which has 4,650 workers.

"What's puzzling about Smithfield is how it engages responsibly in the bargaining process with workers here in Sioux City, but at its Tar Heel, North Carolina, plant, the company is anything but responsible in the way it treats workers," UFCW Local 1142 President Warren Baker said in the statement.

Jerry Hostetter, a Smithfield spokesman, did not reply to e-mails seeking comment.

Smithfield in October sued the UFCW, alleging a "smear campaign" in the union's bid to represent workers at the plant, which began in 1992. In January, the company agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages to workers who said they were fired in retaliation for union-organizing activities.

About 41 percent of the company's 53,100 workers are represented by unions, according to Smithfield's annual report, filed in June.