Fayetteville, N.C. – A few hundred employees at a massive Smithfield Foods Inc. hog slaughterhouse missed work Monday after a union called for a walkout to protest the company’s decision to not make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday.
But it was difficult to tell whether the workers didn’t come to work because of the union or because of other reasons, Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said.
On a typical day, about 100 to 150 people miss a shift, and on Monday there were as many as 150 additional employees absent, Pittman said. He said he couldn’t tell why the workers didn’t come, but that the plant in Tar Heel – which has two daily shifts of 2,500 people – continued operations.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union estimated that 400 people among the 2,500 scheduled Monday morning walked out or did not arrive. The union has been running an organizing campaign at the plant and has already lost one election.
“Compared to the last Martin Luther King Day, it’s about the same,” Pittman said. “There was no walkout. We’re going to have a real good day.”
Workers sent a petition to management last week demanding the King holiday. The company said there wasn’t time to consider the request, but workers could use one of their annual 12 unpaid personal days to observe the holiday. Anyone using up the personal days is subject to being fired after being warned, Pittman said.
Employee Eugene Rogers said he was taking a paid vacation day to honor King but the company should make it a holiday.
Company officials will ask employees in February if they want to substitute the 2008 King holiday for one of their other eight paid holidays, Pittman said.
