ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180051
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
United Steelworkers Local 240 members - most of whom work at Rubatex Corp.'s Bedford plant - will vote today for a union president and vice president in a special election ordered by the United Steelworkers of America because of polling irregularities in the local's election last fall.
Three-term incumbent President Price Parker Jr. and Vice President Rucker Witcher, both Rubatex workers, will run for a second time against fellow Rubatex employees Charles Mallory Jr. and J.R. Wilson.
Parker and Witcher were elected by slim margins last October, but those results have come under scrutiny.
Mallory said he won't call the discrepancies the result of vote fixing, but he added, "it does look mighty suspicious." Mallory also believes that Parker is receiving an unfair advantage from informational meetings being held at the Bedford plant this week by the plant's executive manager, Steve Turner.
According to some employees who contacted The Roanoke Times, Turner has been using some of the meetings to urge employees to vote in the union election, and to remember that a recent revote on contract negotiations saved 287 jobs.
"I've never heard a company official] tell you to go vote in a union election before," said David Newman, a 26-year employee at Rubatex. "Usually they could care less."
Parker asked for the revote after the union narrowly turned down proposed labor contract changes, prompting Rubatex to post layoff notices. Mallory opposed the revote and the contract changes, which include mandatory overtime and changes in seniority rules, because he believes layoffs are inevitable and the union is making concessions without a true guarantee of job security.
Turner and Parker could not be reached for comment.
United Steelworkers Local 240 is made up of approximately 65 workers from Groendyk Manufacturing Co. Inc., which is based in Buchanan, and more than 600 employees of Rubatex and Bondtex Inc., both located in Bedford. All three companies are owned by RBX Holdings Inc. of Roanoke County.
In polls at Rubatex and Bondtex last October, Mallory, a former union vice president, beat Parker by a narrow margin. However, when the union election committee included results from Groendyk, Parker ended up winning by three votes.
That would have been the end of the election, but for a couple of key problems. First and foremost, the three members of the election committee signed sworn and notarized statements that they had never seen nor counted the ballots from Groendyk. They accepted phoned-in results, they said, contrary to union election rules.
Secondly, Groendyk's election sign-in sheet, which is used by union officials to verify the ballot results, could not be located when requested for inspection by a local commission that looked into the election in February.
Frank J. Smith, a Rubatex employee and chairman of last year's union election committee, testified at the commission hearing that he took phoned-in election results from Groendyk and picked up the ballots from there in a sealed box a few days after the election results had been completed.
Reached at his home in Bedford County this week, Smith had no comment except to say that the missing sign-in sheet was the fault of election workers at Groendyk.
After the hearing in February, United Steelworkers district representatives in Roanoke at first ruled for a new election, but less than a month later, reversed the decision, saying that the complaints of polling irregularities had no merit.
When asked Tuesday why the local commission had changed its mind, Gerald Rockwell, the commission chairman, had no comment.
Mallory, Wilson, and Rubatex employee Jimmy Lacy, who had run for union secretary, appealed the commission's decision to the International Executive Board of the United Steelworkers of America. Mallory, Parker, and a Local 240 official traveled to Pittsburgh in May to testify before an appeal panel.
A week later, the International Executive Board ordered a new election to be held, based on the recommendation of the appeal panel, which had said new elections for president and vice president were needed because "inconsistency in record-keeping at [Groendyk] could have affected the outcome of the races."
Lacy was not granted a new election for union secretary because he had lost by more votes than were cast at Groendyk.
Union officers serve three-year terms. Parker was first elected union president in 1989. Mallory served as vice president from 1989 until 1992, when he unsuccessfully ran against Parker for president. Mallory lost to Parker by 59 votes that year.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 linesby CNB