Union: Law doesn’t help LV Wal-Mart workers

Grace Leong

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 | 10:33 a.m.

National grocery store worker union officials, visiting Las Vegas this week for the AFL-CIO's national conference, complained federal labor laws are failing to protect Wal-Mart Stores Inc. workers in Las Vegas wanting to join unions.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union this fall launched its national organizing drive at Wal-Mart with a campaign at Wal-Mart's 230-worker Sam's Club store at 7175 W. Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas.

The union filed its first election request on Sept. 19 for the store and the organizing battled heated up later with the filing by the National Labor Relations Board of labor law complaints against the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant.

At the AFL-CIO's 24th biennial conference at Paris hotel-casino on Tuesday, Doug Dority, UFCW's president, said there "isn't a lot of protection under the National Labor Relations Board Act for Wal-Mart workers who want to organize" because the retailer, at the risk of being sanctioned by the NLRB, allegedly consistently used what he called "the fear factor" to intimidate its pro-union workers.

A vote by 213 workers at Sam's Club scheduled for Nov. 29-30 was postponed after the UFCW brought unfair labor law charges against Sam's Club on Nov. 27.

The UFCW, in its complaint, accused Sam's Club of polluting the "laboratory conditions" or conditions that enable a free and fair election to take place, when it allegedly hired numerous workers to dilute "the union supporters' majority status" and solicited from workers letters allegedly requesting the union withdraw its election petition.

Bill Meyer, UFCW's assistant to the director for Strategic Programs, said: "Between the time the union's first election request was filed on Sept. 19 and the time the bargaining unit was determined in November, Sam's Club inflated the unit by hiring an extra 20-30 workers to get supporters that were anti-union."

The UFCW also accused Sam's Club of "telling other workers that Sam's Club could not give regularly scheduled merit raises because the union filed the election petition" and of "promoting unit members into supervisory positions but not moving them into their new positions until after the election."

Stephen Wamser, the NLRB's deputy regional attorney, said Dority's dispute is with lawmakers, not his agency.

"If unions wanted more punitive measures against employers for labor law violations, the solution is to have Congress enact something that has more teeth."

The NLRB expanded the bargaining unit -- or group of workers to be represented -- to 213 from 203 on Nov. 2 after it found that 10 of 27 additional workers Wal-Mart wanted to be included in the unit met federal labor regulations. The NLRB excluded 17 workers including check-out supervisors, team leads and a loss prevention associate because managers and guards are prohibited by federal law from voting.

The 10 workers are claims, office and cash office associates, marketing representatives and a personnel training coordinator, which were among the classifications of workers that the union wanted excluded. The union wants to represent 203 Sam's Club hourly workers including cashiers, merchandisers, sales, meat and fresh department workers, demonstrators, greeters, maintenance and cart workers.

June Hurst, Sam's Club personnel training coordinator, disputed Meyer's allegation.

"We're entering the Christmas season and tend to do a lot of heavy hiring during mid-October, which is when hiring for the holidays begins for us. We hired about 15-20 people. Also the union's claim is bogus because the NLRB decided that anyone hired after Oct. 19 won't be allowed to vote."

"Merit raises are discretionary rewards given by management and management didn't want the giving of a merit raise before the election to be seen as a bribe, so we were advised that none would be given until after the union vote was done," she said. "Also a few people that were to be promoted to supervisors, held off their promotions so they could vote." UFCW's Meyer said the union has received some 140 letters, which he charges were solicited by management, "which asked us to withdraw the election petition because they want the merit raises Sam's Club told them it could not award before the election."

Sofia Fox, a Sam's Club clothing merchandiser, disputed the union's charge, saying she and another associate were responsible for the letters.

"There were a lot of rumors that many people wanted to be unionized. To get an accurate idea as to what was going on, we wrote the letter and sent it out to our colleagues, using our own income to buy envelops and stamps," she said. "We don't want the union to represent us when we can speak for ourselves."

Mike Leonard, UFCW's executive vice president and director of Strategic Programs, said the NLRB is currently investigating the union's claims and "if Wal-Mart is found guilty, it has the option to agree to a remedy or go to trial."

"We're in no hurry to have the election.The investigations benefit us because it gives workers the chance of a free and fair election. Naturally some workers who wanted the election would be disappointed. But the importance is having a fair vote. If the process isn't fair, we won't go through with the election," he said. "The union is committed to sticking with the workers and will be there for the workers for as long as it takes."

Jessica Moser, Wal-Mart's spokeswoman, disagreed. "If the union felt it had a chance to win, the election would have taken place. The union backed out because it felt the additional 10 workers weren't supporters."