A boisterous crowd of more than 1,000 meatpacking workers and supporters was on hand to greet Smithfield Food shareholders at their annual meeting August 29 in Williamsburg, Virginia. Demonstrators called on Smithfield executives to respect the organizing drive. . . .
On September 16, 2,200 clerical, blue collar, and professional workers in the Santa Cruz County chapter of Service Employees Local 415 walked out. Their employer was long committed to substandard wages, and now planning layoffs in response to a fiscal crisis. And there was only one solid pro-union vote on the county Board of Supervisors.
But though the cards seemed stacked against them, the strikers won the highest raises of any comparable group of workers in the state while producing a harvest of new union activists. How did they do it?
Eighty-five thousand members of the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers from Maine to Virginia face a showdown with Bell Atlantic on August 5 over the issue of organizing rights at its new subsidiaries.