The Fight to Unionize the World's Largest Pork Processing Plant
 
 
Airdate: Friday, December 15, 2006, at 9:30 p.m. (CST) on PBS.

(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html.)
 

Programming Note:

NOW's journalists are first-ever TV reporters allowed to film inside the Smithfield Packing plant. The North Carolina facility has history of intimidation, spying, and rights violations. This time on NOW.

Can labor unions still pack a punch for workers? On Friday, December 15, at 8:30 pm, NOW travels to Tar Heel, North Carolina, to investigate the twelve-year battle to unionize the world's largest pork processing plant. In so doing, NOW's Maria Hinojosa became the first TV journalist ever allowed to film inside the plant, owned by Smithfield Packing Company. Smithfield has been locked in a fight with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) for over a decade, amid court and government findings of past intimidation, physical violence, spying, and other violations of workers' rights. The outcome of the stand-off is a test case for organized labor's efforts to unionize low-wage workers, particularly in the traditionally anti-union South.