By Seth Borden and Richard Hankins

Smithfield Foods, Inc. has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and several alleged co-conspirators. The Complaint alleges that the Defendants violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, a statute originally designed to address organized crime issues.

The 94-page Complaint alleges that the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and Local 400 resorted to a “corporate campaign” after failing for over a decade to organized Smithfield’s workers in Tar Heel, Virginia. Smithfield asserts that

Defendants conspired to extort Smithfield’s “voluntary” recognition of Defendants UFCW and Local 400 as the exclusive bargaining representative of hourly employees at Tar Heel – regardless of the degree of actual employee support for such representation – by injuring Smithfield economically until Smithfield either agreed to Defendants’ demands or was run out of business.

The Complaint details a long list of activities by the union and its alleged co-conspirators and claims:

In addition to millions of dollars in lost or reduced business, lost contracts and lost promotional and advertising opportunities, the Smithfield brand name has been significantly tarnished. Defendants have caused many of Smithfield’s customers and business partners, as well as an uncountable number of formerly loyal customers, to believe that it is a disreputable company that operates an unsafe workplace, mistreats its workers and regularly violates the law. . . . Many of Defendants’ extortionate acts have painted a revolting and visceral picture of Smithfield’s business and human relations practices.

A copy of the Complant (2.5 MB) is available HERE.

For years, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has been waging a bruising corporate campaign against Smithfield Foods -- the nation's leading producer of pork products. The UFCW's actions against Smithfield in North Carolina provide a perfect example of the increasingly popular union organizing tactic: the “corporate” or “comprehensive” campaign. Labeled by union organizers as the "death of a thousand cuts," these campaigns attempt to bury the target employer in an avalanche of negative publicity, consumer pressure and legislative regulation, in order to coerce acquiescence to union organizing efforts.

Smithfield attempts to join another vanguard group of corporate campaign targets: those taking responsive legal action. In 2006, Sutter Health won a $17 million verdict against UNITE-HERE for libelous mailings sent out during the union’s corporate campaign against a vendor, Cintas Corporation. More recently, Cintas funded an employee lawsuit against UNITE-HERE for invasion of privacy when organizers unlawfully obtained personal information about employees utilizing recorded license plate numbers obtained during surveillance by union operatives.

Additional Reading:

• Trends in Corporate Campaigns (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)

Seth Borden is a partner in the New York City law firm of Kreitzman Mortensen & Borden.

Richard Hankins is a partner in the Atlanta office of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.