Friday, April 15, 2011

Union vote set at McComb plant

By LOU WILIN, STAFF WRITER, The Courier Findlay, OH

McCOMB -- As they left work Thursday, employees at McComb's Hearthside Food Solutions plant, formerly Consolidated Biscuit, walked by lines of friendly co-workers handing them pro-union leaflets.

Inside the building and inside their paycheck envelopes, their employer is giving them anti-union messages.

Eight hundred full-time workers at the plant will vote May 5 and 6 on whether to join the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

Labor strife has festered a long time at the factory, which manufactures Nabisco-brand cookies and other baked goods. Some employees sought unionization in 1994 and 2002, but both times a majority of their colleagues rejected it in elections.

This election could be different.

It was ordered more than two years ago by the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Cincinnati, after they rejected the 2002 election.

Both said Consolidated Biscuit harassed union organizing activities, and confused and scared workers into voting against unionization.

The court and board required Consolidated Biscuit to reinstate employees Bill Lawhorn and Russell Teegardin in 2008, six years after the company fired them for trying to form a union.

Since Hearthside Food Solutions bought the company a year ago, it has eliminated workers' pensions, increased their health coverage expense and reduced the coverage, plant workers said Thursday. Some complained of reduced sick time with pay, changed schedules, and management favoritism that promotes, demotes and fires people unfairly. They also complained of unsafe work conditions, in which workers occasionally lose fingers or suffer broken arms or carpal tunnel syndrome.

Attempts to contact the company for comment were unsuccessful Thursday.

To be sure, not all workers will vote for the union. Several said so as they headed for their cars after work Thursday.

"I don't want them to take my money," said one woman.

"Been here 33 years, we don't need (a union)," said a man.

But others are hoping for union representation.

"I hope and I pray," said 17-year employee Selenia Smith of Hamler, as she waited outside Hearthside to give pro-union leaflets to co-workers.

Just a few feet from her was machine operator Margie Carrillo of Leipsic, also distributing leaflets.

"I want a contract. Nobody's safe. They're firing their own employees," she said. "Having a contract, we'd have safety for three to five years. Just consistency. We have no consistency at our bakery."

Lawhorn, of Leipsic, remains a crusader for a union.

"They're lining their pockets at our expense," he said. "I'm paying $50 a week for insurance that doesn't cover much at all."

Hearthside workers in McComb earn half as much as unionized Kraft/Nabisco workers in Philadelphia, said John Lazar, business agent for Local 492 of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, Philadelphia.

One worker complained Thursday of a mismatch between her work and her pay.

"I'm tired of ... being abused, coming in here and trying to do two or three people's jobs for one person's pay," said the woman, who declined to be identified.

One thing seems to have improved, some workers said: Hearthside seems less hostile to the union campaign than Consolidated Biscuit was in 2002.

"They're not playing threatening games like (Consolidated Biscuit) did," said employee John Grant of McComb. "They're still talking it down but they're not zeroing people out or putting a bulls-eye on people's backs, harassing them, putting them in crappy jobs."

In fact, John Price, a union international representative, said he will get to take the "unheard of" step of giving a speech to workers in the Hearthside building on April 26. The company was ordered to allow it by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Cincinnati, because of worker rights violations in 2002, Price said.

But the company apparently has not given up the fight against a union. One worker was afraid to say how she would vote on the union, even with anonymity.

"If I say how I feel, I could lose my job, because this plant has made it clear they want no union," the longtime plant worker said. "We've had mandatory meetings ... and they say we do not need a union ... I know how I'm voting, but I won't tell anybody."

Read this article at TheCourier.com...