Smithfield Foods, United Food and Commercial Workers reach settlement - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Smithfield Foods and the union jointlh announced a settlement Monday thatended Smithfield’zs racketeering and extortion lawsuit against the union, according to severakl media reports. The lawsuit was to stary trial Mondayin Va., but the two sidews and their lawyers reached an agreemenrt at the courthouse before the proceedings began. In a key pointr of the settlement, the two sides agreee to terms on an election process for thealmosyt 5,000 employees at Smithfield's facility in Bladenb County to vote on whether to join the No date was announced for when the electionn would be held.
As part of the the union agreed to end its public campaign against Smithfield Foods that beganin 2006. The campaign involvee calls for product boycotts and other measures designe d tohurt Smithfield’s business. The United Food and Commercialo Workers International has been trying for more than 15 yearxs to unionize the workers at the plant in Tar abouta 90-minute drive from Raleigh. Workers twice before have voted down proposals to join the but the union has argued that Smithfieldd used illegal means to thwart the elections an assertion that played a role inthe union’ds campaign against the Va.-based company.
Smithfield argued in its lawsuit thatthe union’s campaign was an extortion effort designed to force the world’s largest pork producer to unionizs the Tar Heel plant, the largest pig slaughterhouse in the world.