Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 5, 1994 TAG: 9411070034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Of 550 eligible voters, 96 percent cast ballots in Thursday and Friday's union certification election. The new Martinsville DuPont Employees Union got 274 votes to the UMW's 218. Thirty-four employees voted for no union representation, and three ballots were challenged.
The UMW loss was unexpected, considering the string of organizing successes the union has enjoyed lately, including at a West Virginia tree cutter and an Ohio emergency medical services provider. Also, 70 percent of the plant's workers had signed UMW petitions calling for Friday's election.
The plant's management and supporters of the new union said workers rejected the UMW because the union lacked experience in the nylon industry, because of its history of strikes and violence and because affiliating with an international union would have stripped workers of their local autonomy.
The UMW will investigate reports of company interference in its organizing drive and expects to decide by the end of next week whether to file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, UMW organizer Lee Potter said. Company officials, one-on-one and in group meetings, may have scared employees by saying the plant would close or lose customers if they chose the UMW, he said after the results were made known.
The Martinsville Nylon Employees Council had brought in the UMW. The council had not been able to negotiate a new contract with plant management since 1987, and sought outside help after DuPont quit deducting union dues from workers' paychecks and switched to a new management system that the council said did away with seniority rights.
Clinton Jennings, president of the council, said the company had scared workers by showing videos of news coverage of the Mine Workers' 1989 strike against the Pittston Co. and through daily handouts of anti-UMW literature. Jennings questioned the legality of the new union and said he thinks the company is behind it.
Billy Buchanan, a 16-year DuPont employee and leader of the new union, said more than 30 percent of the employees signed petitions asking his organization to intervene in the election. Bylaws for the new union are almost ready and officers will be elected as soon as the NLRB certifies Friday's results, he said.
The UMW lost, Buchanan said, because of a lack of worker support for the leadership of the employee council. His union also promised to be more democratic than the council, which has been controlled by a few people, Buchanan said.
The outcome of the election "has all the flavor of a new beginning," said DuPont Plant Manager John F. Winske. For 10 years, union leadership and management at the plant have not been able to get along, he said.
Winske said he would have preferred not having any union at the plant, but he thinks he can reach a contract with the leadership of the new union. Winske came to Martinsville two months ago from Remington firearms, a former DuPont subsidiary.
"If we reach the point where management and union leadership start to respect each other, problems will go away right quickly," Winske said. Workers are afraid of company plans for a new team-style management because they don't understand it, he said. Earlier this year, DuPont began implementing the plan, under which workers will be rewarded more for their skills than their seniority, he said.
The average wage for a production worker at the plant is $14 an hour, and fringe benefits are worth more than $6 more.
by CNB