Key dates in fight to unionize Smithfield plant

A look at the key dates in the fight over unionizing Smithfield Food Inc.'s slaughterhouse and processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C.

_ October 1992: Smithfield Foods Inc. opens world's largest hog processing plant in Tar Heel, about 80 miles south of Raleigh.

_ August 1994: After a bitter organizing campaign, plant workers vote 704-587 to reject union representation.

_ August 1997: Workers again reject offer to join the United Food and Commercial Workers, voting 1,910 to 1,107.

_ March 2002: A federal jury orders Smithfield and its plant security chief to pay $755,000 to two union activists who were beaten and falsely arrested the night the votes in the 1997 election were counted. The decision was overturned on appeal the following year.

_ June 2003: The UFCW launches campaign asking consumers and groceries in key markets to protest Smithfield's labor policies.

_ May 2006: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rules Smithfield must allow another union election and pledge to never again threaten workers trying to unionize. The court said during organizing drives in 1994 and 1997, Smithfield confiscated union materials, spied on employees, threatened to freeze their wages, fire them and close the plant if the union was approved. Smithfield later agreed to pay $1.1 million in back wages, plus interest, to workers fired as part of the dispute.

_ July 2006: Smithfield calls for election on union representation as UFCW begins new campaign of marches and demonstrations in major U.S. cities. Union says Smithfield's past misdeeds make ensuring a fair ballot impossible and demands it be certified once more than half of workers sign cards seeking a union.

_ November 2006: About 1,000 workers, most of them Hispanic, stage walkout to protest the company's decision to fire 50 workers it said provided false identification information.

_ January 2007: Hundreds of employees missed work after the UFCW called for a walkout to protest Smithfield's decision to not make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday.

_ January 2007: Hundreds skipped work a day after federal immigration officials arrested 21 workers inside the plant.

_ August 2007: Smithfield Foods Chief Executive Larry Pope expresses optimism that a resolution with the union is near. "We are tired, too," Pope said.

_ October 2007: Smithfield Foods files a federal civil racketeering lawsuit, accusing the UFCW of a smear campaign that hurt the company's stock price and bottom line.

_ October 2008: With Smithfield's lawsuit about to go to trial, the company and the union agree to hold an organizing election. The company dropped its lawsuit and the UFCW agreed to end its publicity campaign.

_ Dec. 10-11, 2008: Employees are scheduled to vote on whether to unionize.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.