ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996                  TAG: 9605090055
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER 

UNION: ORGANIZING HAMPERED HANOVER MEDDLED, LABOR GROUP SAYS

A labor union has accused operators of one of Hanover Direct Inc.'s two Roanoke Valley warehouses of meddling in the union's campaign to represent warehouse employees. The company denies the charge.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400 in Landover, Md., told the National Labor Relations Board that officials at Hanover Direct's Roanoke County warehouse are hampering its effort to collect signature cards. Specifically, the union said in its charge - made public Wednesday - that the catalog retailer has urged employees who signed union cards to tell the union to tear them up.

Hanover Direct spokeswoman Debra Berliner said the Weehawken, N.J.-based company denies any wrongdoing. While the company does not believe a union is in the best interest of workers or the company, it is not interfering with the rights of workers to try to form one.

"This is an unsupported charge that the union has filed," Berliner said. "The NLRB has taken no adverse action against the company."

The union asked the NLRB office in Winston-Salem, N.C., to find the company in violation of a law that prohibits companies from interfering in organizing activities. The NLRB has a policy of checking all such complaints to see if a full investigation and hearing before an administrative law judge are warranted. That initial check could take a month or more.

The union last month said it hopes to organize about 350 employees at the warehouse, a distribution point for household textiles and other furnishings. The company's apparel distribution and telemarketing center in Botetourt County is not a target of the union efforts. If the campaign succeeds, it would be one of the largest organizing victories for a Roanoke Valley union in recent years.

Dudley Saunders, a union staff member, said the union has collected more than the roughly 100 cards needed to force a vote on whether a union local should be formed at Hanover Direct, but would not elaborate. No election date has been scheduled.

Saunders said the company is giving employees bright red cards, which if mailed to the union order the union to tear up the sender's signature card. "This is like a big stop sign," Saunders said.

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