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Grinch of the Year: Smithfield Chairman |
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The votes are in. And the winner, if you want to call him that, is Joseph Luter III, chairman of Smithfield Foods Inc.
With more than 10,000 votes cast, Luter grabbed 28 percent of the vote. But it was not a runaway. He barely beat out American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey (27 percent) for the (un)coveted title Grinch of the Year.
The seventh annual Grinch of the Year contest, sponsored by Jobs with Justice, (JwJ) gives us all the opportunity to cast a vote for the national figure who does the most harm to working families.
Smithfield, located in southeastern N.C., operates the largest pork slaughterhouse in the world. The Tar Heel plant employs 5,000 workers and kills and dismembers over 32,000 hogs each day. Jobs with Justice says the plant remains one of the most dangerous worksites in the United States, and workers are routinely injured, harassed, intimidated and threatened by Smithfield management.
Arpey, who came in second, demanded that workers give concessions to keep the airline out of bankruptcy in 2003. Now that the company is back in the black, JwJ says upper-level management is reaping the benefits with millions of dollars in bonuses, but workers get nothing.
The rest of the (un)worthy contenders included Verizon Business’s Bob Toohey, United Arlines CEO Glenn Tilton, Burger King CEO John Chidsey, American Motion Picture and Television Producers President J. Nicholas Counter III and a number of write-in candidates.
Go here to read more about these corporate uglies.
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