ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 1996 TAG: 9606040036
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
A federal regulator has meted out unusual punishment for a Lynchburg company they said engaged in illegal anti-union activity.
A Roanoke union that was on the receiving end of that behavior will get bargaining rights even though it lost an earlier vote to organize the company's workers.
An administrative law judge of the National Labor Relations Board, sitting in Atlanta, found that Adams Wholesalers Inc. banned the wearing of union hats by workers but allowed supervisors to wear anti-union buttons.
The federal agency said the company also engaged in other forms of intimidation to thwart the campaign last year by Roanoke Teamsters Local 171.
Jim Guynn, the local's president, announced the ruling Monday, saying he already had asked Adams Wholesalers for a meeting to begin contract talks.
"This is the most dramatic win that I've seen for a union in a long time. All the charges we brought against the company were upheld," Guynn said.
Company executives did not return phone calls Monday. The company's attorney also could not be reached.
The Cincinnati manufacturer and distributor of wood products can appeal its loss to the five-member National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C.
Generally, unions must get support for an organizing election from at least 30 percent of a company's workers or a group of employees, such as production workers. If the union receives a majority of votes in an organizing election, it becomes the workers' bargaining agent for pay, fringe benefits and working conditions.
In this case, the Teamsters won bargaining powers even though the union lost the election.
Such decisions are rare but not unprecedented, said Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in New York.
He said federal law guarantees unions an environment free from company intimidation in which to try to organize new locals. Rulings like the one against Adams come in rare cases, when the courts rule that a company made a fair vote impossible, Katz said.
Curtis Wells, a spokesman for the regional NLRB office in Winston-Salem, N.C., said such rulings occur only when "the company has committed ... hallmark violations."
The Roanoke Teamsters met resistance from the company soon after beginning a campaign in March 1995 to represent its 38 production and maintenance employees and drivers, said Guynn, the local's president. In an election two months later, the union lost 11-18. The union then complained to the NLRB that company tactics put the union at an unfair disadvantage.
Administrative Law Judge J. Pargen Roberston found that Adams Wholesalers threatened to take away benefits and jobs if the union was selected and offered raises and bonuses to dilute the perceived benefit of unionization.
The court found the atmosphere at Adams Wholesalers too charged to permit a fairer second election, so it gave full bargaining rights to the union.
It also ordered that Adams must rehire former employees Steve Bell and Gary Blankenship, because of evidence the truck drivers were fired for their union activity. Both won back wages.
, so the company must recognize a union that a majority of its employees did not elect.
banned employees from wearing Teamsters hats,
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