From the UFCW site on Smithfield's sterling record:

In January 2005, the internationally recognized Human Rights Watch issued a report that documents many of Smithfield's human rights abuses. This report, titled "Blood Sweat, and Fear: Workers Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants," highlights the community's outrage. The report documents how Smithfield workers are being threatened and even fired for defending their civil rights on the job.

While Smithfield's anti-worker practices have not changed, the face of the workforce has. Eight years ago, the plant was majority African-American. Current estimates place the workforce at about 55% Latino, while African-American workers now make up 30-35%; the remainder is split fairly evenly between White and Native American workers.

and their private police force:

Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel is the only meatpacking plant in the United States to have its own private police force. Under a somewhat obscure North Carolina state law, Smithfield has created a company police force that patrols the plant, carries concealed weapons on and off duty, and has the power to arrest workers and detain them in an on-site jail cell.

Since its founding in 2000, Smithfield Company Police have arrested at least 90 workers and charged them with a variety of crimes. Ultimately, many of the charges have been dropped by the Bladen County Court—although arrested employees are forced to hire attorneys and pay court costs.10

The Chief of Smithfield Police is Danny Priest—previously the head of security—who was found guilty of violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 for arresting and beating union activists after the 1997 election at Smithfield. Other company cops were also involved in the violence following the 1997 election, and some are still Bladen County Sheriff Deputies.

One of these company cops was recently arrested and charged with using a Smithfield-issued handgun while off-duty to shoot a 20-year old man. The victim of this shooting has sued Smithfield, alleging that the company was negligent in issuing a handgun to this cop, who had shot and killed a crime suspect a few years prior to this incident while working as a public police officer. Smithfield "should have known of the aggressive and dangerous propensity" of this cop, and did not maintain proper control over the guns issued to these cops.11

Due to the presence of the company cops in the plant, employees work under the constant threat of intimidation. In November 2003, a majority of the employees of Smithfield's sanitation subcontractor QSI, Inc., protested their working conditions by walking off the job. An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board found that Smithfield Company Police and QSI managers physically assaulted workers and caused one worker to be falsely arrested in retaliation for their activity.

In my fight against red-light cameras, I emphasized the problems of ceding law enforcement powers to a private entity. In that case, the powers were used to extort monies - in Smithfields?

In its report issued in January 2005, Human Rights Watch found that the actions of the Smithfield Company Police represent the "conflict of interest that can arise when company employees can exercise state police powers while responding to the employer's directives and interests." HRW continues by pointing out that these problems can be worse if the police have not been properly trained or supervised in the technicalities of labor law and the rights of workers to organize.12

An examination of the company's actions since the 1997 election shows that those were not isolated events. There appears to be a developing pattern of using violence and intimidation to interfere with workers' concerted attempts to exercise their civil rights.

The Human Rights Watch report [PDF].

The NC Council of Churches further notes:

With the county no longer offering its assistance, Smithfield created the private force to do its dirty work. Since its formation, the Smithfield Company Police have arrested nearly ninety people. In 2003 workers at QSI Inc., a subcontractor that does sanitation in the plant, walked off their jobs in an attempt to improve working conditions. The police assaulted these workers, even falsely arresting one of them. QSI, Inc., NLRB (2005). In 2004, two union supporters were arrested, paraded through the plant in handcuffs, detained for 7 hours (without being allowed to make a phone call, even to make sure that their children were safe), and falsely charged with arson. The charges were later dropped by the Bladen County prosecutor because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Most importantly, these acts of intimidation are violating the civil rights of over 5,000 people and effectively denying them the ability to exercise rights guaranteed to them as workers in the United States and the state of North Carolina.

Whether Keystone Kops or modern day Pinkertons, some of Smithfield's "police" have already demonstrated a proclivity towards violence and dishonesty - the last thing we need to do is have the State promote policies that could lead to a new Matewan.