
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990                   TAG: 9005150121
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TULTEX TO APPEAL NLRB ELELCTION RECOMMENDATION

Tultex Corp. officials have decided to appeal a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer's recommendation that a new representation election be held for its Martinsville employees.

The sweat suit maker believes the April recommendation by James Palermo, an NLRB hearing officer, "is wrong both factually and legally," said John Franck, Tultex president.

It would be very unfair to Tultex employees to go through another campaign and another vote, Franck said in a weekend statement.

The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers lost a September election by a vote of 1,481 to 1,231. The union also lost elections in Martinsville in 1979 and 1981.

The ACTWU objected to the company campaign against the union before and during the election. A hearing on the objections was held in February.

Franck said his company believes appealing this decision "is the right thing to do for our employees, for Tultex and the community."

The employees "listened to both sides in a fair campaign and then freely made up their minds when they voted . . . ," Franck said.

In a letter to his work force in Martinsville, Franck said Palermo dismissed 18 of the union objections and sustained a part of four others but "we feel that the effects were so isolated and minor that holding a new election is inappropriate."

In April, Palermo also found other company conduct during the campaign "not specifically alleged to be objectionable."

The Tultex exceptions will go directly to the full NLRB in Washington for a ruling, according to Gary Stiffler of the Winston-Salem NLRB region. "Once the case is in litigation," he said, "it gets in line with the other cases."

Stiffler would not predict when a decision will come from the labor board but Franck said he has heard that such an appeal may take as long as eight months.

While the NLRB considers the appeal, Franck said the company does not intend to campaign "and, hopefully, the union will do the same. . . . No matter how you may have voted, most of us have had enough campaigns, debates and arguments about this subject to last us a long, long time."

The union conducted a campaign among the workers, and the ACTWU claimed Tultex mounted a "sophisticated, multimillion-dollar campaign of fear and pressure" through movies, radio commercials and multimedia productions.

by CNB