Sam’s Club union drive still on hold

Grace Leong

Thursday, Dec. 5, 2002 | 11:19 a.m.

A labor election at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Sam's Club at 7175 W. Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas remains on hold while both sides review whether to appeal a ruling by a National Labor Relations Board judge on an NLRB complaint filed on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

The UFCW, which filed its first election request on Sept. 19, 2001, for the 230-worker Sam's Club Spring Mountain store, said a vote in November 2001 was postponed after the union brought unfair labor charges against Sam's Club.

In Friday's ruling, NLRB Administrative Law Judge James Rose found Sam's Club violated labor laws when managers suspended employees' merit raises and solicited workers' letters requesting that the union withdraw an election petition.

He also ordered Sam's Club to post notices at three Las Vegas stores pledging to obey the law and to reverse disciplinary action against one union supporter.

This is the second Las Vegas labor ruling involving Wal-Mart this Fall. In the first ruling in September, Wal-Mart was ordered to post notices at three Las Vegas Wal-Mart stores pledging that it would stop preventing its employees from distributing union materials and that it would stop enforcing "broad and discriminatory" no-solicitation rules.

Rose presided over a trial Aug. 5-15 in Las Vegas on the NLRB complaint involving the union's organizing effort in early 2001 at the three Las Vegas Sam's Club stores. He issued his ruling Friday and it was made public Wednesday.

Rose dismissed union allegations that Sam's Club tried to undermine union support for the election at Spring Mountain by "packing the bargaining unit" or demoting supervisors to bargaining unit jobs and delaying the promotion of unit employees to supervisory positions.

The NLRB, in its complaint, also alleged several workers at Sam's Club stores at 5101 S. Pecos Road, 7175 Spring Mountain Road and 1910 E. Serene Ave. allegedly received unwarranted disciplinary warnings for their union activity and some workers were allegedly illegally suspended after they allegedly insisted on their rights to have co-workers witness investigatory interviews.

Rose ordered Sam's Club to reinstate Ida Williams, a worker who was suspended after a supervisor unlawfully refused to allow her to have a witness at a management meeting. But he dismissed allegations that another worker, Sandra Mena, was fired for her union sympathies, saying "active support for a union does not immunize an employee from discipline or discharge for failing to do her job in the manner required."

Bill Meyer, assistant director of the UFCW International in Washington D.C., considered the ruling a major victory for the union but said he doesn't expect the election at the Spring Mountain Sam's Club will be rescheduled soon because the NLRB is waiting to see if Wal-Mart will appeal the ruling.

He said the union and the NLRB are weighing whether to appeal a portion of the ruling that found Mena was discharged for cause.

Bill Wertz, Wal-Mart's spokesman, said the company is also considering appealing part of the ruling but said it was generally "pleased that some of the claims that Sam's Club illegally discharged pro-union workers were ruled invalid."