About this item
When Smithfield Foods opened its pork processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, in 1992, workers in the rural area were thrilled to have jobs at what was billed as "the largest slaughterhouse in the world." However, they soon left in droves because of the fast, unrelenting line speed and high rate of injury. Those who stayed wanted higher wages and safer working conditions, but every time they tried to form a union, the company quickly cracked down, firing union leaders, assaulting organizers, and setting minority groups against each other. Author and journalist Lynn Waltz reveals how these aggressive tactics went unchecked for years until Sherri Buffkin, a higher-up manager at Smithfield, blew the lid off the company's corrupt practices.
About the Author
Lynn Waltz is an assistant professor of journalism at The Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, she has been a professional journalist for more than twenty-five years. Ms. Waltz received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from Old Dominion University in 2011. She moved to Norfolk in 1988 to take a job as a reporter at The Virginian-Pilot where she was nominated for a Pulitzer for her story about a legislator's abuse of power. There she also won prestigious national awards for stories that led to the release of an innocent man from prison and a feature about Virginia's Death Row chaplain.
