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Press Releases FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 13, 2007 PROTEST AGAINST CELEB CHEF PAULA DEEN AT CHICAGO THEATER FOR HER SUPPORT OF ABUSIVE PORK COMPANY Cooking queen is asked by city elected officials to end controversial endorsement of company condemned by mayor and city council Saturday, November 17th Chicago Theater 9:30am 175 N. State St.
Protesters will attempt to deliver a letter from abused workers from the Smithfield Pork processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina to celeb chef Paula Deen who is appearing at the Chicago Theater this weekend. Deen has come under fire for her promotional deal with Smithfield, which has the largest pork processing plant in the world. The company was found in legal rulings to have assaulted, intimidated, threatened and used racial epithets against its employees trying to better working conditions at the Tar Heel, North Carolina plant. Human Rights Watch issued two reports in 2000 and 2005 documenting widespread dangerous conditions there that result in high rates of often crippling injuries.
Chicago aldermen are asking Deen to keep the promise she made on the Larry King Show to meet with workers who are trying to inform her about the harsh and inhuman working conditions. The workers have already received the support of individuals including Senator John Edwards, Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Judge Greg Mathis and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser.
In the letter to Paula Deen, the elected officials ask that she meet with them out “of respect for the people of Chicago and its elected officials”. Last year the city council and Mayor of Chicago, the scene of meatpacking abuses almost a century ago, passed a resolution against Smithfield calling on the company to allow workers to choose a union and to “cease and desist from the deplorable, immoral and illegal conditions they have inflicted on their workers.”
Over a decade ago, Kathie Lee Gifford was similarly approached over sweatshops involved in the manufacturing of her line of clothes causing her to eventually change suppliers.
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