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

DATE: TUESDAY, November 22, 1994                   TAG: 9411230058
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UMW OBJECTS TO VOTE

The United Mine Workers union, which earlier this month lost an organizing election at DuPont's Martinsville nylon plant, has filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board, charging the company interfered in the election.

The UMW lost the Nov. 5 election to a new in-house union that was formed after the UMW began its organizing drive at the plant earlier this year.

The Martinsville DuPont Employees Union received 294 votes to the UMW's 218, with 34 employees voting for no union representation. The outcome was surprising because the UMW claimed 70 percent of the plant's 550 workers had signed its organizing petitions.

A Mine Workers official said Monday that the union filed charges with the NLRB's Winston-Salem, N.C., office last week. The complaint alleges DuPont interfered in the election by threatening to close the plant, endorsing the new in-house union and allowing supervisors or managerial workers to act as election observers.

After investigating the objections, the labor board could either dismiss them, find they were justified and set aside the election, or hold a hearing to try further to establish their accuracy, said Ron Yost, an NLRB supervisor. Such an investigation usually takes three to four weeks, he said.

Johnny Watkins, personnel manager at the plant, said DuPont is unable to respond to the Mine Workers' objections until the NLRB releases the details of its investigation. The only thing the company knows at this point is the union has made the objections, he said.

The Martinsville Nylon Employees Council, the former in-house union at the plant, had been unable to negotiate a new contract with DuPont since 1987. The council asked the UMW for help and agreed to step aside after DuPont quit deducting union dues from employees' paychecks and switched to a new management system that changed workers' seniority rights.

The plant's management and supporters of the new union said workers had rejected the UMW because it lacked experience in the nylon industry, because of its history of strikes and violence and because affiliation with an international union would have stripped the local union of its autonomy.

by CNB