Educational Media Reviews Online

In 1992, Smithfield Foods built a meat-packing plant in Tar Heel, NC, and almost from the beginning the company joined a pitched battle with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union over wages, work-place safety, and other labor practices at the plant. That struggle, which lasted until 2008 when the union finally prevailed, is the subject of this documentary.

The history of worker abuses and intimidation at the hands of meat-packing companies is a long one as evidenced in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle and Barbara Kopple’s 1990 Academy-award-winning documentary American Dream. Smithfield Foods, the largest meat-packing company in the world had been accused of the same kinds of abuse yet owners had vowed they would never be unionized. So anti-union actions had become routine at their facilities, such as illegally firing labor organizers on false charges, demanding proof of social security status of Hispanic workers, patrolling with their own police force, and calling an immigration enforcement raid on the facility.

The population of workers at the Tar Heel facility were primarily Hispanic immigrants and African-Americans, and the divide between the two demographics had been used to sow distrust and tamp down organizing until outside groups, such as the NAACP, rose to support the rights of all the workers and a coalition formed. Eventually Smithfield attempted to stop the union with a lawsuit though when the union subpoenaed the company’s health and safety records to be shown in court, the company caved.

Ultimately the union won the workers approval in 2008 and by the conclusion of the documentary the workers and the company appear to be working in relative harmony. The documentary’s strength is not so much in documenting the victory as it is in telling the story of grassroots coalition-building where relatively powerless individuals join forces.

The production style of this documentary is relatively routine, comprised mostly of talking heads, newspaper stories, and b-roll of the Tar Heel plant and local churches, with narration by actor and union activist Danny Glover. There are no company representatives interviewed in the documentary and the workers and union activists interviewed reiterate many of the same points, yet it is a story worth telling. Union Time is a welcome addition to the canon of union-organizing documentaries. Recommended for pubic and academic libraries.

Awards

Best Documentary Feature, Workers Unite Film Festival