Racketeering Laws Still Threaten Worker Speech Rights
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
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"Can corporations use the RICO statutes to prevent unions
and their allies from launching public education campaigns that hurt the
companies' business?"
A settlement has been reached between the United Food and
Commercial Workers union and one of the nation's worst corporate citizens,
Smithfield Foods, the company that runs the world's largest pig slaughterhouse.
The bosses agreed to allow a union election, after ten years of organizing
activity. But a critical issue raised by the suit has not been settled, and
still looms as a huge
threat to the rights of labor - and all people in the U.S. - to organize
against the economic and entrenched political power of America's corporate
rulers.
The union had conducted a public education campaign that
exposed Smithfield's anti-labor practices at the giant Tar Heel, North Carolina
processing plant, including widespread intimidation of workers, spying, illegal
firings, and the use of racial epithets. The campaign, launched in 2006, was
highly successful. Human Rights Watch issued two reports on Smithfield's
operations, documenting systemic abuse of workers' civil rights. The New
York Times published a piece on the company's instigation of racial
conflicts between workers - the article won a Pulitzer Prize. And the federal
Environmental Protection Agency and the state of North Carolina imposed fines
and citations on Smithfield. The union enlisted religious and community leaders
far from the plant facilities, reaching out to the national market, urging
consumers to boycott Smithfield's hams. Anti-corporate advertising was placed
in venues such as Washington, DC busses. The company claims the publicity
campaign cost $900 million in losses.
"Worker's speech would
be subject to racketeering statutes."
Rather than allow workers to exercise their rights to
fairly decide on union representation, Smithfield charged the union and its
allies with attempting to extort Smithfield out of its "right" to conduct
business as a non-union company. The suit sought to find the union guilty under
federal RICO racketeering laws - a perversion of the statute that other
corporations have attempted to use to criminalize labor organizing. Although
both parties last week agreed to let the suit drop, a federal judge had
previously agreed to hear the company's
case on its merits. That means the question still stands: can corporations
use the RICO statutes to prevent unions and their allies from launching public
education campaigns that hurt the companies' business? The judge ordered both
the union and Smithfield not to comment on the settlement. The stakes are
enormous. If it is unlawful to mobilize public sentiment in the marketplace to
pressure corporations to change their practices, then unions and citizens have
no rights to speak in ways that might harm a corporations' bottom line. It is
an extremely dangerous
legal notion. Corporate speech, such as advertising, would be protected,
but worker's speech would be subject to racketeering statutes. Under such an
interpretation of the law, the South Africa corporate divestiture campaign of a
generation ago might have been found to be illegal - an extortionist racket
aimed at damaging corporate profitability.
The United States is already very nearly a dictatorship of
the rich. Giving RICO protection to anti-labor practices would make the
dictatorship complete.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].
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