Nearly nine years after a unionization drive failed, a federal appeals court has ruled that the Smithfield Packing Company repeatedly broke the law in battling unionization at its giant pork-processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. The United Food and Commercial Workers union had accused Smithfield of illegally skewing a 1997 election by intimidating and firing workers.
See "Court Rules Pork Processor Broke Law in Fighting Union", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, May 9, 2006