Posts Tagged: Mountaire Farms

UFCW members and organizers from locals across Region 2, joined together with UFCW Local 1208 member organizers for a coordinated worker outreach to Mountaire Farms workers.

UFCW members and organizers from locals across Region 2— including UFCW Locals 23, 27, 400, and 1776— joined together with UFCW Local 1208 member organizers for a coordinated worker outreach to Mountaire Farms workers who are fighting for a voice on the job.

The week-long house visits and worker mobilization resulted in hundreds of worker contacts and culminated with a well-attended general worker meeting in Fayetteville, N.C., where many UFCW members from the Smithfield pork processing facility in neighboring Tar Heel, N.C., shared experiences with workers at Mountaire’s Lumber Bridge, N.C., chicken processing plant.

“I know many of you may be scared but nothing is going to change if you don’t speak up,” said Lydia Victoria, a Smithfield worker who witnessed the fight for a union voice at her plant. “I was also scared when we were trying to form our union but I found strength in my co-workers. Now, we are able to continuously improve our working conditions because when we face our managers and Smithfield we are not alone.”

In addition to Smithfield workers, the Mountaire workers also heard powerful testimonies from UFCW Local 27 Mountaire workers about having a union voice on the job.

“Things can be different for us at Mountaire if we stand up,” said Ricardo Rivera who has worked at Mountaire Farms for the past seven years and suffered three injuries on the job. “Safety is important to me because I want to be healthy so I can continue to provide for my four kids.”

UFCW Local 1208 member Patricia Bryant takes action with her fellow union members in support of Mountaire Farms poultry workers having a union voice on the job.

Patricia Bryant is a UFCW Local 1208 member who currently works at a Smithfield Foods plant in North Carolina. Before she came to Smithfield, she worked for a year at the nearby Mountaire Farms poultry plant. She is now actively involved in the campaign to help workers at Mountaire Farms have a union voice because she has experienced first-hand how bad the conditions there are.

Bryant has participated in two of the UFCW Local 1208 organizing actions at Mountaire, and she also recently attended a gathering of Mountaire Farms workers in which actor Danny Glover came to speak in support of them.

Having worked at Mountaire Farms and seeing how having a union voice makes a difference at Smithfield, Bryant fights hard for her friends who still work at Mountaire Farms.

“It’s fun,” she says of the actions. “When my friends see me wave and fighting for them, hopefully they’ll see that there’s something better on the other side when you are a union member,” Bryant continued.

“Mountaire Farms workers face a lot of hardships compared to workers at Smithfield Foods including lower pay and a poor benefits plan.  My friends have families that they are trying to support and everyone has bills to pay. If they are able to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I have to fight for them. These are good people. They work hard every day, but the industry tends to forget that workers are people, and not just a number. That’s why I’m yelling and pounding the pavement at these actions.”

Bryant also notes that the managers at Mountaire Farms make it hard for the four main ethnic groups at the plant–Mexican, Haitian, African American, and Caucasian–to stand together or in some cases even communicate.

“The Haitian workers speak French, but the company fired their translator so now no one in the plant can talk with them,” she says.

That’s why those helping the workers at Mountaire to unionize are trying to connect with each group about issues that matter to them. Now, people from all backgrounds are coming out to meetings to learn about being part of a union and fixing the problems at work.