Is Fighting for Justice Racketeering?

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Criticizing a company’s business practices and holding actions to end exploitation of workers is a form of racketeering, claims Smithfield Foods in a lawsuit filed against multiple unions and labor organizations, reports Jane Slaughter in this month’s Labor Notes. “The suit aims to halt the United Food and Commercial Workers’ campaign to unionize 4,600 workers in its Tar Heel, North Carolina, slaughterhouse,” based on a “1970 statute originally designed to battle gangsters’ extortion schemes” reports Slaughter. “The defendants’ supposed crime? They employed strategies long used by unions and social movements to educate the public, garner support, and pressure corporations.” Click here to read Slaughter’s full story.