Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150077
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The union had filed a petition on April 30, asking the NLRB to hold an election among the 115 production workers at the Boones Mill plant.
Formerly Continental Homes, the Boones Mill modular-homes plant was bought by North American Housing of Point of Rocks, Md., in October 1987.
Seventy percent of the plant's employees had signed union cards, Herbert Thomas, an international union organizer, said. Signatures of only 30 percent were needed to force an election.
After filing a charge against the company on May 14, the union asked the NLRB to proceed with the election anyway. The Carpenters withdrew that request on Wednesday, stopping the election.
An charge of unfair labor practice automatically blocks an organizing election unless the party bringing the charge requests that it proceed, explained Ron Yost, acting assistant to the director of the Winston-Salem NLRB office.
It's "extraordinarily unusual" for a union to pull out of an election, said D. Lee Rankin, general manager of the North American plant. "They simply had no support and to go to election would have been a major defeat for them," Rankin said.
Thomas said the union had asked the NLRB to proceed with the election despite the charge so the federal agency would investigate the union's complaints against the company. It withdrew its request to proceed, Thomas said, "because the company was violating so many laws it wasn't giving people a free choice."
In its charge against North American, the union has accused the company of:
Threatening workers with the loss of jobs.
Asking them to sign a document rescinding their signatures on the union petition.
Surveillance of union meetings.
Changing established rules and conditions of work.
Threatening the loss of benefits if the union wins the election.
The NLRB has investigated the union's charges and has found merit in some of them, Yost said. The NLRB will not issue a complaint against the company until North American Housing has an opportunity to work out a settlement of the charges, Yost said.
Rankin said the company will contest vigorously the charges against it. He said the charges were fabricated by the union, and the company's attorney has responded to the NLRB.
In talking with employees, management has discovered that the union simply did not make its case, Rankin said. He said workers applauded and celebrated when it was announced that the election had been canceled.
Thomas said he understood that a few workers had cheered the delay in the election. Thomas was confident in the union's support, however, and said Thursday he was mailing letters to supporters explaining why the union had withdrawn its election request.
The campaign at North American is part of a major organizing drive by the Carpenters in Franklin County, Rankin said.
Thomas acknowledged that employees of M W Manufacturers Inc. of Rocky Mount, a maker of windows and building products, had asked the Carpenters to organize there, but he said the union had made no decision yet on whether to act on that request.
M W became aware last year that union officials were meeting with workers and getting signatures on petition cards, said Ray Robrecht of Salem, the company's lawyer. The company felt the union's support was not strong and the organizing drive never got off the ground, Robrecht said.
M W is interested in having good relations with its workers, is opposed to having a union, and will do everything legally in its power to keep one out, Robrecht said.
by CNB