Boycott Smithfield Foods
I haven't been on a boycott kick for a while. In the past, I would spend a lot of time not buying products because of corporate standards. Over the last, I don't know, six or seven years, I've loosened the standard a bit although I still don't buy certain products.
I've been to Wal-Mart once in my entire life because I couldn't find a $3 taxi cab mirror at any other store; I don't buy gas from ExxonMobile and haven't since the Valdez spill; I try not to buy Proctor & Gamble and Gillette products because they test on animals in an inhumane way and I haven't for almost 20 years. For a while there, I didn't buy ham or pork products because I saw "Babe" and the pig was so cute, I couldn't bare eating the stuff. But then, I slipped back into eating it after I got bored with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the short shelf life of deli roast beef and turkey meat, my other choices.
Well, earlier today, a reader sent me this article from the French newspaper, La Monde [via Truthout.org], about what is going on in Romania near the farms of a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods: ["Swine Plague: Romania Criticizes American Group's Attitude"].
I was pretty shocked by this but I probably shouldn't be. Corporations do this all the time. They treat people like shit and then expect everyone to just go on about their lives. But enough already. If we are going to have a civil society, then we have to treat people with the respect and dignity they deserve. It goes double for you if you are a corporation. Corporations have no rights; the people have rights. But corporations have a responsibility to treat people decently in order to continue to do business with people.
So, to that end, I penned this short email to the corporate office of Smithfield Foods, in Virginia:

To whom it may concern,

I’ve just read a story online about the situation with the swine plague near your Romania farms and the way your company is treating the people in that area. I am shocked by what I read and I doubt a newspaper with the credibility of La Monde would get the story wrong.

I want to let you know that I am refusing to buy any of your products until you change your corporate standards, farming practices, and the way you treat your neighbors. I currently buy Krakus ham and Carando pepperoni on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and I buy at least one Butterball turkey during the holidays. I will buy no more of your products until you fix this problem and treat the “peasants” of Romania with the decency and respect they deserve.

I'm boycotting Smithfield Foods. I ask you to join me. I don't know if it will make any difference. One might say that I'm denying myself the joy of eating Krakus ham, something I really love and is a real treat at $6 a pound. But, at the same time, I can buy a different brand of lunch meat and feel better about the situation knowing that my money will not go to promote this kind of corporate behavior. You can too.