000658 ConAgra Unit Accused By Labor of Stifling Union

Omaha, NE - ConAgra Inc denied it tried to keep beef processing workers from participating in union organizing activities, a day after the United Food and Commercial Workers Union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board alleging intimidation by ConAgra of its employees.

“We have not been interfering with anyone's right to organize,” said ConAgra spokeswoman Karen Savinski. “We have a good working relationship with our employees and we expect that to continue in the future. It is ultimately the employees' choice whether or not to organize.”

Savinski said the union charges involved only the company's Omaha, Neb., meatpacking plant, which employs several hundred workers.

“This is just based on Omaha and it's not a whole national deal,” she said.

ConAgra's beef unit is but one of many companies targeted by the union for organizing activities in the Omaha area. The largely Latino immigrant population that staffs the meat plants typically are underpaid and work in very poor conditions, said

Jill Cashen a union spokeswoman in Washington, DC.

ConAgra, the U.S.'s second-largest food company, is the only company targeted with formal charges so far because it has been the most strident in opposing union activities, Cashen said. The charges filed by the union accuse ConAgra of threatening workers who were trying to organize by searching their lockers, videotaping them and questioning them about their activities.

“That is the company that has had the most retaliation against workers,” she said.

“Conditions are horrible for these people. They are treated like they are just disposable workers rather than people who have come to this country to build a new life,” said Cashen.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com