Episode 18: Lessons from Smithfield: How workers unionized the largest hog processing plant in the world 20 years ago

On the Line

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Episode 18: Lessons from Smithfield: How workers unionized the largest hog processing plant in the world 20 years ago

On the Line

Jul 13, 2024

20 years ago, over 5,000 Smithfield Foods workers in Tar Heel, NC who work at the largest hog processing plant in the world won their union. At the time, it was the most significant union victory in the private sector in over a decade. How'd they do it?

In this episode of On the Line, we're joined by Gene Bruskin, Campaign Director for the Justice for Smithfield Campaign to break down the organizing method these 5,000 workers used.

Discussion about this podcast

On the Line

On the Line is a network of union members and leaders who cover, analyze, and draw lessons from the struggles of workers across the country to build a fighting labor movement. Although the vast majority of workers in the U.S. remain unorganized, union popularity is at its highest since 1965. One of the key drivers of this popularity is a groundswell of interest from a new generation of young workers who are looking to the labor movement as a vehicle to fight against an increasingly bleak future. A labor movement that is content with business as usual will not realize the opportunities of this moment. Instead, we need unions that articulate not only our demands for better pay and working conditions, but can advance our broader political aspirations as a working class. Building a movement that can advance the hopes and dreams of all workers won't be achieved by creating perfect structures and processes in unions that become more marginal with each passing year. It will only be achieved by organizing at a scale and fighting with an intensity that we have not seen in decades.

This is the kind of labor movement that we need.

Our future is on the line.

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