Local Workers Show Solidarity in Raleigh

"I feel like I have two lives, my black-and-white life at work, and my Technicolor union life, full of passion and caring," Susan Smithers told UNION CITY. Smithers was one of nearly two dozen UFCW 1994 members and staff who drove down to Raleigh, NC last Saturday for a major demonstration. Four thousand marchers from 81 organizations took to Raleigh's streets in support of health care, education equality, and workers rights as Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP - which organized the annual event – laid out a 14-point legislative agenda for the year ahead. "We were there for the NAACP just as they've been there for us," said UFCW 1994 Political Director Bob Stewart. The Smithfield campaign was a primary focus of the day, as former and current workers from the Smithfield packing plant in Tar Heel, NC were accompanied by hundreds of other union members and supporters who showed their support by wearing their yellow Justice at Smithfield t-shirts. "It's just like Martin Luther King said," added Smithers, "worker rights, human rights, health rights, women's rights, environmental rights, all are interwoven and intertwined and should be basic rights for everyone, not privileges for a few." The march and rally "gave me goosebumps," said Smithers, a Local 1994 Executive Board member who works as a Young Adult Specialist at the Prince George's Memorial Library System. "That's why I'll always go when called on." Click here for more rally photos.