Thanksgiving 2003

Mr. Joseph W. Luter, III

CEO and Chairman of the Board

Smithfield Foods, Inc.

200 Commerce Street

Smithfield, VA 23430

CC: Members of the Board of Directors of Smithfield Foods, Inc.

CC: Senator Elizabeth Dole, Senator John Edwards

CC: U. S. Representative Mike McIntyre 

CC: NC Representative Edd Nye, NC Senator Tony Rand

Dear Mr. Luter:

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  It is a time of year when we are thankful for many things, including for persons whose efforts put food on our tables.

This letter comes to you and your board members from the NC Council of Churches.  Both our Executive Board and our statewide Economic Justice Committee have signed resolutions of support for the Witness: Justice at Smithfield campaign by workers at your Tar Heel, North Carolina plant.  Our religious principles and faith lead us to agree with their demands for fair working conditions and for non-interference with their legal right to organize into a union.  Enclosed you will see a copy of one of the of our signed resolutions, as well as a brochure on who we are as the Council. The Economic Justice Committee is comprised of clergy, denominational leaders, members of financial institutions, and representatives of labor and nonprofit organizations.

We as the church are becoming more and more aware of your company’s illegal interference with worker rights to organize and sign union cards at the Tar Heel plant.  We know about your intimidation of workers, and about racial divide-and-conquer tactics with African-American and Latino workers.

As people of faith, we believe scripture calls all of us to do our parts, in our places, to enhance the dignity and worth of all persons.  Most mainstream religious denominations support the right to unionize (see enclosed sheet from the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice).  But more importantly, when a company such as yours harasses, fires, and intimidates workers who are doing what they are constitutionally allowed to do, this is scandalous. 

For too long, companies who treat workers better elsewhere, due to unionization in those locations, come into North Carolina ready to squeeze the lowest wages and worst working conditions out of our people.  This is wrong, morally and ethically.  Furthermore, we believe these practices will ultimately hurt the reputation and prosperity of your business. 

I am asking you as President, and you as board members, to please call me, staff to the Committee, at 919-876-9954 and explain why you allow continuation of human rights violations at your North Carolina plant.  We would like to hear why you think it is all right to treat hard-working people in such fashion, for the almighty dollar.  The Pope has a term for this, “savage capitalism,” which is as far away from honest business practice as chitterlings are to filet mignon.

Sincerely,

Barbara Zelter, MSW

Program Associate, North Carolina Council of Churches