Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240117
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Local 400 said Thursday that the National Labor Relations Board ``has overruled all the company's objections and ordered Local 400 certified as the workers' bargaining agent.''
But a spokesman for the company's owner, Smithfield Foods Inc. in Smithfield, said that opinion was written by a hearing officer for the NLRB. The spokesman, Norman Fisher, said that decision still must go to the full board and, therefore, is not final.
Fisher said he had not seen a copy of the hearing officer's report and could not comment on it.
Union spokesman Tom McNutt Jr. said the opinion found ``without merit'' Valleydale's charges that the union engaged in wrongful conduct.
He said Valleydale's unfair labor practice charges against the union were dismissed last October, ``but the company delayed union certification by filing the same objections under a different section'' of the National Labor Relations Act.
The union began its organizing drive in February 1994.
In an election held at the plant Sept. 1, employees voted 76 to 70 in favor of representation by Local 400. The union challenged six other ballots; Valleydale challenged one.
Both sides charged voting irregularities, however, and the matter went before the NLRB.
McNutt called the decision ``a victory for the men and women at Valleydale who through all the company delays never wavered in their desire for union representation.''
McNutt said the company had used every means available under the law to ``deny the will of their workers. All the money they spent on lawyers to delay bargaining rights for their employees could have been better spent improving their wages and benefits. That's what we'll be bargaining for shortly.''
by CNB