ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610280055
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
Mail-order merchant Hanover Direct Inc. has been accused of meddling in a union's bid to register its workers.
The company, operating telemarketing and distribution facilities in Roanoke and Botetourt counties, is one of the region's largest employers. Hanover maintains it did nothing illegal when it blocked the airing of a pro-union video at its Roanoke County warehouse last spring, Clint Morse, a lawyer for the company, said Friday.
But earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board charged the catalog merchant over the incident. The charge said the company broke a law that prohibits companies from interfering in union organizing activities.
The federal agency scheduled the company for a trial before a judge May 27 in Roanoke. If found guilty, Hanover Direct probably would have to let the video be shown, NLRB spokesman Gary Stiffler said.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400, in Landover, Md., had urged that the charge be filed. The union, the largest in Virginia representing workers in a variety of service industries, has been trying since January to convince Hanover Direct employees of the need for a union at the plant. The campaign has long been in a stage when the union tries to collect signed cards from supportive workers. The plant, with 350 to 400 workers, distributes home furnishings. The company also employs about 575 at another area telemarketing and warehouse facility.
Last spring, the company showed what the union called an anti-union video to workers on company time, Morse, the company lawyer, said. Employees sympathetic with the union-organizing effort asked to show a pro-union video that they intended to make and were refused.
Morse said NLRB officials hope the case will resolve a question that current law and past NLRB decisions have not addressed: whether employees who want to form a local union branch in their plant or office can bring a union-owned videocassette recorder onto company property and show pro-union videotape in the company lunchroom.
Employees have a right to distribute printed literature on company property, as long as it's done in nonwork areas while employees are off the clock on breaks.
In recent months, the union's campaign at Hanover has faltered, said Thomas McNutt Jr., head of organizing for the union.
"A good portion of the work force has been swayed by the literature and video the company has distributed,'' and with the union unable to counter it, Hanover has the upper hand, McNutt said.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB