Not everyone will be celebrating at the grand opening of the new Big Y supermarket in Northampton this week—local labor supporters will be handing out leaflets at the event, in protest of Big Y’s lack of responsiveness to a national workers’ rights issue.
A committee of the activist group Western Mass. Jobs With Justice is organizing the protest, after repeated failures to secure a meeting with Big Y officials to discuss concerns about one of their suppliers, Smithfield Foods. Workers at Smithfield’s North Carolina hog-slaughtering plant—the world’s largest—have been battling to form a union in response to what supporters call abysmal working conditions. (See “Bacon Battle,” Oct. 4, 2007, www.valleyadvocate.com.)
As a show of support, regional groups like Jobs With Justice have pressed local supermarkets to remove Smithfield products from their shelves. While activists say Stop and Shop has quietly complied with the request, Big Y—a Springfield-based chain owned by the D’Amour family—has refused even to meet with a delegation of local religious, political and labor leaders. (Big Y’s vice president has also not returned an interview request from the Advocate).
The group will hand out leaflets about the Smithfield issue at the Nov. 8 grand opening of the new, $20 million Big Y on North King Street in Northampton. The event, scheduled for 10:30 a.m., will include a speech by Mayor Clare Higgins. Other local political leaders—including, from Springfield, Mayor Charlie Ryan, the City Council, and state Rep. Ben Swan—have already thrown their support to the labor effort.
Supporters who want to join the leafleting are asked to meet at the Big Y parking lot at 10:10 a.m. For more info, call 413-827-0301 or email wmjwj@wmjwj.org.
