ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 11, 1997 TAG: 9703110076
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON THE ROANOKE TIMES
The union's officials aborted a scheduled vote in May 1996 one day before it was to occur.
The International Union of Electronic Workers this week will try a second time to organize employees of Virginia Transformer Corp., a Roanoke company that repelled a union vote just 10 months ago.
The company's 100 production and maintenance workers will vote Thursday whether to register the union as their collective bargaining agent. Participation in the election is voluntary; it would take a majority of those voting for the union to prevail.
The union's officials aborted a scheduled vote in May 1996 one day before it was to occur.
Virginia Transformer executives oppose the union's efforts because they believe the private company and employees are better off nonunion, said the company's lawyer, Clint Morse.
The 26-year-old concern recently has said its sales and employment are growing rapidly. In January, it announced an agreement to distribute an Indian company's transformers in the Americas, reiterated a goal of boosting sales to $35 million this year and said nearly 50 new hires had brought employment to 215.
When the union canceled last year's vote at Virginia Transformer, an official said it was in response to what the union saw as intimidating company propaganda aimed at instilling fear among the workers. The union considered trying to punish the company by filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. No such charges were filed, however, Morse said.
Instead, according to Morse, the union late last year filed paperwork to try to reschedule the vote, but was thwarted when the NLRB found that it had filed outdated signatures from workers who support the union drive. Thursday's vote was set when the NLRB received new signatures from at least 30 percent of the production and maintenance rank-and-file who indicated they support the union's effort.
Union officials could not be reached Monday to comment on the upcoming vote.
The Washington, D.C.-based electronic workers union, with 125,000 members, represents production employees at several other area companies, including General Electric Co.'s Motors and Industrial Systems division in Salem, ITT Night Vision and Alcatel Telecommunications Cable in Roanoke, Hubbell Inc. in Christiansburg and Aerofin Corp. in Lynchburg.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB