Judge Allows Racketeering Suit Against Protesting Union
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a racketeering lawsuit filed against a union that criticized conditions at a North Carolina slaughterhouse.
U.S. District Judge Robert Payne of Richmond, Va., refused last week to dismiss the suit, filed by Smithfield Foods against the United Food and Commercial Workers International, Adam Liptak writes in his Sidebar column for the New York Times.
The suit (PDF posted by the New York Times) contends the union interfered with the company’s relationship with celebrity chef Paula Deen, who promotes Smithfield products on her show. The complaint says the union demonstrates at Deen’s public appearances and persuaded Oprah Winfrey to bar Deen from promoting Smithfield hams on her show.
Bu the most “striking assertion” in the suit, Liptak says, is that the union engaged in racketeering when it urged city councils in New York, Boston and elsewhere to pass resolutions condemning its treatment of workers.
G. Robert Blakey, who helped write the law cited in the suit, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, is one of the company’s lawyers. “It’s economic warfare,” Blakey told the newspaper. “It’s actually the same thing as what John Gotti used to do. What the union is saying in effect to Smithfield is, ‘You’ve got to partner up with us to run your company.’ ”
Liptak disagrees. “What Mr. Blakey calls extortion sounds quite a bit like free speech,” he concludes.
