Struggle Erupts and Migra Raids Plant: lengthy
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The Struggle Erupts and Big Migra Raids the Plant
The Workers at Smithfield
By MIKE ELY and LINDA FLORES
On Wednesday, January 24, agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) staged a raid of the largest pork processing plant in the world * Smithfield Food's massive operation in Tar Heel, North Carolina. This plant has been the site of intense struggle throughout the last year, with over a thousand workers striking in November against the firing of undocumented workers. According to the first press reports, this raid arrested 21 workers * in a plant where the federal authorities are demanding the firing of over 600 workers for being undocumented. The following article was based on the interviews and investigations conducted by a team of reporters and translators from Revolution newspaper who went to this rural area of North Carolina in December. It is a sister piece to the article "No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Strikers at Smithfield's Tar Heel Slaughterhouse" that was published here on Counterpunch.
A team of reporters and translators from Revolution recently traveled through North Carolina to talk with workers and activists involved in the November 16, 2006 wildcat strike at Smithfield Foods' Tar Heel plant. This is the second of a series of reports from that trip. The first part "No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding" appeared in Revolution #76.
"We came for the money," Jose told us. And we heard those same words from all the immigrant workers who spoke with us on our trip to southeastern North Carolina.
The workers had come far north for the same wages that many Black workers consider intolerably low. Starting pay at Smithfield Foods' massive hog-killing operation is $8 an hour. It is more in a day than Jose could make in a week in Guerrero, Mexico. One Black worker said to Revolution: "At these wages, we can barely live in a rundown house or trailer."
Many immigrants are sending money home to family in Mexico and Guatemala, and dreaming of returning themselves, once they have saved "enough," to build a house or buy a patch of land.
Under these conditions, thrown together by the workings of a global system of plunder, workers from different parts of the world have found themselves working side by side. And they often look at each other across a real divide created by their different experiences and different summations of how things came to be the way they are.
remaining article to be found here:
http://counterpunch.org/ely01262007.html
The Workers at Smithfield
By MIKE ELY and LINDA FLORES
On Wednesday, January 24, agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) staged a raid of the largest pork processing plant in the world * Smithfield Food's massive operation in Tar Heel, North Carolina. This plant has been the site of intense struggle throughout the last year, with over a thousand workers striking in November against the firing of undocumented workers. According to the first press reports, this raid arrested 21 workers * in a plant where the federal authorities are demanding the firing of over 600 workers for being undocumented. The following article was based on the interviews and investigations conducted by a team of reporters and translators from Revolution newspaper who went to this rural area of North Carolina in December. It is a sister piece to the article "No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding Strikers at Smithfield's Tar Heel Slaughterhouse" that was published here on Counterpunch.
A team of reporters and translators from Revolution recently traveled through North Carolina to talk with workers and activists involved in the November 16, 2006 wildcat strike at Smithfield Foods' Tar Heel plant. This is the second of a series of reports from that trip. The first part "No Longer Hidden, No Longer Hiding" appeared in Revolution #76.
"We came for the money," Jose told us. And we heard those same words from all the immigrant workers who spoke with us on our trip to southeastern North Carolina.
The workers had come far north for the same wages that many Black workers consider intolerably low. Starting pay at Smithfield Foods' massive hog-killing operation is $8 an hour. It is more in a day than Jose could make in a week in Guerrero, Mexico. One Black worker said to Revolution: "At these wages, we can barely live in a rundown house or trailer."
Many immigrants are sending money home to family in Mexico and Guatemala, and dreaming of returning themselves, once they have saved "enough," to build a house or buy a patch of land.
Under these conditions, thrown together by the workings of a global system of plunder, workers from different parts of the world have found themselves working side by side. And they often look at each other across a real divide created by their different experiences and different summations of how things came to be the way they are.
remaining article to be found here:
http://counterpunch.org/ely01262007.html
all insanity:
a derivitive of nature.
nature is god
god is love
love is light
a derivitive of nature.
nature is god
god is love
love is light
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