ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180043
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
A labor group claiming to be Virginia's largest union said Wednesday it is attempting to organize workers at Hanover Direct Inc., the region's biggest catalog merchant.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400, with 45,000 members, including nearly 5,000 people added in Danville this week, said it has turned its sights on the direct-mail company operating warehouses and a telemarketing center in the Roanoke Valley.
The Landover, Md.-based union, which already represents about 4,000 workers in Western Virginia, this week will officially notify Hanover Direct Inc. of its three-month-old organizing campaign directed at part of the company's Roanoke-area operations, said Thomas McNutt Jr., an organizing official.
Hanover Direct operates two warehouses in Roanoke and Botetourt counties, one for its home furnishings lines with 400 permanent and temporary workers, and a second facility for its apparel catalogs that is under the same roof as the telemarketing center for the Tweeds catalog. The second facility employs 300 people in warehousing and about 275 in telemarketing, all 575 of whom are regular employees.
The union drive targets only those who handle home furnishings, because members of that group contacted the union early last fall, McNutt said. The campaign aims in part to drive up wages, which now range from $5 to $11 per hour, and also to resolve promotion issues, he said.
Hanover Direct officials knew some Roanoke-area employees had talked about a union, but the company did not believe a campaign was under way, said Ralph Bulle, vice president of human resources for the Weehawken, N.J.-based company.
McNutt expressed surprise at Bulle's comment. "We stood outside their facility and handbilled their employees" on two occasions in January, McNutt said.
He said Local 400 has met the conditions of the National Labor Relations Board for an election to be staged. The federal board requires organizers to gather signatures of 30 percent of affected employees to begin balloting - about 128 signatures in this case.
However, the United Food and Commerce Workers union set a higher threshold on its own initiative of about 75 percent, or 320 signatures, and "we are not that far off," McNutt said. He declined to give a signature count.
That strategy escalated this week with four teams, each consisting of an employee and union staff member, visiting workers at homes to sell the benefits of union membership, McNutt said.
As the campaign at Hanover Direct appears to be nearing the point where the union could call for a vote, three United Textile Workers locals in Danville have voted to merge with Local 400.
McNutt said Hanover Direct employees raised three main issues with the union. They feel past raises have been meaningless because they were accompanied by increases in the cost of benefits; they suspect they do not make as much as some workers sent by temporary employment firms; and they claim favoritism in the promotion process.
Bulle, the company's human resources official, said Hanover Direct provides competitive wages and benefits, as shown by what he said is a large number of people who apply for jobs.
Bulle said he did not know how much temporary workers in Hanover Direct facilities receive, because he pays the temporary employment firm. He said the promotion plan is fair.
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