Union puts the heat on cook Paula Deen

Celebrity cook Paula Deen's promotion of supermarket hams brought some heat outside her Savannah kitchen from about 40 protesters supporting a labor union.

After months spent dogging the drawling, butter-loving Food Network hostess at book signings and paid appearances from Charlotte, N.C., to Portland, Ore., the United Food and Commercial Workers union staged a rally Monday outside Deen's restaurant in her home city of Savannah.

The union has targeted Deen, 60, because of her endorsement deal with Smithfield Foods Inc., the Virginia-based owner of the world's largest pork processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. The union has fought with the company for more than a decade in attempts to unionize plant workers.

Union organizers want Deen to meet with workers at the Tar Heel plant and take their concerns about wages and poor working conditions to Smithfield executives. They also want her to stop endorsing Smithfield products if the company refuses to make changes.

"Paula, Paula, meet with the workers!" the yellow-shirted demonstrators chanted Monday evening outside the entrance to Deen's restaurant, The Lady & Sons. Few customers inside bothered to look up from plates of fried chicken and sweet potatoes.

Deen, just home from a tour promoting her book "Christmas With Paula Deen," told The Associated Press earlier Monday she has no plans to intervene.

"I feel that I'm being dragged into something that I'm certainly no expert at," Deen said.

Union organizers have popped up at Deen's appearances across the nation since April. She said they turned up at six of the eight cities on her book tour since Thanksgiving.

Smithfield Foods employee Wanda Blue traveled to Savannah between midnight shifts at the Tar Heel plant, where she inventories live hogs in their pens for $11.40 an hour. Blue said she's a big fan of Deen, but would stop watching her TV shows if Deen refused to meet with workers.

"That's hard for me to say, because I love watching her," said Blue, 53.

Deen opened her downtown restaurant in 1996 and watched her popularity explode after her TV show, "Paula's Home Cooking," debuted on the Food Network in 2002. Last summer, Forbes magazine ranked Deen at No. 99 in its list of the 100 most powerful celebrities and estimated her income at about $4 million.

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On the Net:

Paula Deen http://www.pauladeen.com

Smithfield Foods Inc. http://www.smithfieldfoods.com

Justice @ Smithfield http://www.smithfieldjustice.org