By Melissa Meinzer - Pittsburgh City Paper, July 20, 2006
For many workers at the East End Food Co-op, the road to union recognition gets longer with every step they trudge. Although union supporters say a majority of workers have voted in favor of a union, the co-op is declining to recognize the election, in part because of a rival union effort begun by a former manager. And there is another source of controversy: the co-op’s hiring of Braun Consulting — an organization seen by many employees as anti-union.
Workers at the Point Breeze natural foods outlet, who have been trying unsuccessfully to unionize for years, thought that their most recent push would be enough to have management recognize the Industrial Workers of the World as their union. They say that more than half of the 55-person staff signed union authorization cards between May 19 and June 7. While members of the Workers Committee, the employee group heading up the IWW push, won’t reveal just how many signed cards they have, committee member Evan Wolfson calls it “a clear majority.”
The Workers Committee began pushing for management recognition of the century-old IWW in May to address concerns of high employee turnover, working conditions and raises they felt were slow in coming. “We’re looking for a peer-run task force that everyone can participate in,” says stockroom Manager Jim M. Steiner, who supports the IWW.
The co-op’s board had resisted a similar union effort in 2003. Today, the board is more hands-off, leaving Co-op General Manager Rob Baran in charge of day-to-day operations — and dealing with the union drive.
“We stepped out,” says board president Mike “Q” Roth. “To step back in would cause confusion as to whose role is what.”
On July 10, the signed IWW union cards were verified by a third party — Garfield-based social justice organization The Thomas Merton Center. Co-op management could have recognized the IWW based on the cards alone — had not a rival union drive suddenly appeared two weeks earlier, started by a former management employee (see “Co-op or Co-optation,” July 6).
On June 28, co-op supplement buyer Dan Denlinger began circulating a call to form a different union at the co-op — the United Co-operative Workers, which Denlinger created himself. This forced management to consider the brand-new union as a potentially equally valid representative of the co-op staff, or risk breaking federal law.
Denlinger’s fledgling UCW has the same legal protection as the venerable IWW, according to Mike Joyce, assistant to the regional director of Pittsburgh’s branch of the National Labor Relations Board. The recognition of one union via signed cards alone isn’t valid once another union enters the picture, he says.
“I feel like this other union is being used as a crutch,” says Wolfson, adding that, in light of high turnover among co-op workers, any delay could be magnified by the need to have a new crop of employees decide whether or not to sign union cards.
“If the card check would have gone through it would have been done and over,” says Steiner.
Denlinger had been on the co-op’s management team for about five weeks before demoting himself (with no reduction in pay) to his previous level. He resigned after speaking out about the union at a June 27 co-op meeting — something management is forbidden to do.
“I went home that night and it was like a little miniature Big Bang within myself: whoom!” he says. “I had a vision of this [new union], designed for us.” At first he announced that his union’s dues would be a penny a month, in contrast to the IWW’s sliding scale of between $6 and $18 a month. He later backtracked to say that there would be other fees involved.
IWW organizers suspect that the UCW was ginned up to sow divisiveness and to create obstacles to recognizing the IWW.
Denlinger acknowledges that his timing might seem a bit suspect “It definitely walks like a duck.” But, he says, “That is the only way it resembles what’s been alleged” by IWW organizers.
Today, Denlinger reports, up to eight other employees are on board with his union. Presenting employees with only one option, he says, is far from democratic.
Baran, the co-op’s general manager, says he has been relying on a stable of advisors to help him through the union drive: other general managers at co-ops across the country, labor law lawyers and professors, and Bob Braun, of Braun Consulting, hired on June 28. Before that, he’d been informally consulting with Braun.
“Braun is definitely anti-union,” says Workers Committee member Stacy Clampitt (and sometime City Paper photographer). Fellow committee member Wolfson cites as evidence the latest online Braun newsletter, which includes information for employers on how to resist unionization: “A positive environment with open communication and fairness can be crucial in preventing or defeating an organizing campaign,” says the newsletter. It warns companies to watch “the distinction the NLRB makes between ‘work time’ and ‘work hours.’ The NLRB says it’s OK to prohibit employees from engaging in union activity under one but illegal under the other.”
“The co-op hasn’t asked me to defeat the union or interfere with the union,” Bob Braun says by phone from his Seattle office. “I don’t know what ‘anti-union’ means. That’s an emotional term that people evoke. It’s like saying you’re anti-air.”
Braun says that all three of Braun Consulting’s employees are Teamsters in Washington state. He declined to specify to which local they belonged, preventing confirmation among the many Seattle locals.
“It’s not like we’re just doing what other people tell us,” says the co-op’s Baran, defending his use of Braun. “We’re making our own decisions. We want them to be informed decisions.”
Baran and Braun both say they are committed to ushering in a legal, fair and democratic unionizing process, and that a secret-ballot election is the best way to do so.
Co-op workers in favor of the IWW see such an election, pitting their union against Denlinger’s newly minted effort, as just another way to delay the recognition of a union at the Co-op.
“There are loopholes and ways people can fight union campaigns,” says Baran. “We are not going to do that. It’s staff’s decision. The fairest thing for us to do is to have an election.”
Who will oversee such an election, and when, remains to be determined.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Union idea splits workers at food co-op
By Anya Sostek - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It's not easy being green, even for people who make a living doing it.
Just ask the workers of the East End Food Co-op, who find themselves embroiled in two competing unionization drives at the Point Breeze market that sells organic and environmentally friendly food and health products.
Since May, several workers at the member-owned store have been organizing to join the International Workers of the World, hoping that forming a union will give them leverage against management. Then again, defining "management'' isn't that easy to do at a co-op since everyone, at least theoretically, has a say in how things are run.
Even so, Stacey Clampitt is helping to organize the IWW drive because, the 24-year-old Wilkinsburg resident says, "We feel that we don't really have enough power over our workplace. We would like to be able to hold management accountable, to have checks and balances."
Ms. Clampitt said that workers would like to see better health-care benefits, less turnover and a living wage -- the current starting salary is $6.50 per hour, though management recently promised to raise it to $7 per hour, said Ms. Clampitt.
But in late June, as more and more workers signed cards indicating their desire to join the Wobblies, as members of the IWW are often called, at least one employee became uneasy.
Dan Denlinger, the store's supplement buyer, decided to start his own union as an alternative to the IWW.
The idea came to him in a sudden brainstorm, he said. "Bam, it just exploded like a new star."
Mr. Denlinger, 52, of North Point Breeze, had worked in management at the co-op for five weeks, but resigned his management position shortly before starting the union.
"The United Co-operative Workers is a concept for a genuinely grass-roots, and hence truly radical [union], as well as [a] low-cost union alternative," he wrote in a position paper.
Mr. Denlinger opposed the higher dues of the IWW -- a sliding scale ranging from $6 to $18 per month -- and worried that the co-op workers would lose their independence if they affiliated with another group.
Plus, he just had a bad feeling about the whole thing.
"My response here is essentially intuitive," he said. "Maybe it's because I'm reading that book by Gavin de Becker, 'The Gift of Fear,' but my intuition is saying 'No, no, no ... danger.' "
By July 6, a majority of the approximately 50 co-op workers signed cards indicating their desire to join the IWW -- a count verified by the Thomas Merton Center.
The general manager of the co-op, Rob Baran, declined to recognize the card check results, opting instead to hold a secret ballot election, said Ms. Clampitt.
Mike Q. Roth, president of the co-op's board, said that the board had decided to leave all decisions about the unionization drives to Mr. Baran, who could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Denlinger is trying to collect signature cards from 30 percent of the workers in order to get his union onto the secret ballot as well. He said that while no formal deadline has been set, he believes that the issue will be resolved by the end of the month.
It's not easy being green, even for people who make a living doing it.
Just ask the workers of the East End Food Co-op, who find themselves embroiled in two competing unionization drives at the Point Breeze market that sells organic and environmentally friendly food and health products.
Since May, several workers at the member-owned store have been organizing to join the International Workers of the World, hoping that forming a union will give them leverage against management. Then again, defining "management'' isn't that easy to do at a co-op since everyone, at least theoretically, has a say in how things are run.
Even so, Stacey Clampitt is helping to organize the IWW drive because, the 24-year-old Wilkinsburg resident says, "We feel that we don't really have enough power over our workplace. We would like to be able to hold management accountable, to have checks and balances."
Ms. Clampitt said that workers would like to see better health-care benefits, less turnover and a living wage -- the current starting salary is $6.50 per hour, though management recently promised to raise it to $7 per hour, said Ms. Clampitt.
But in late June, as more and more workers signed cards indicating their desire to join the Wobblies, as members of the IWW are often called, at least one employee became uneasy.
Dan Denlinger, the store's supplement buyer, decided to start his own union as an alternative to the IWW.
The idea came to him in a sudden brainstorm, he said. "Bam, it just exploded like a new star."
Mr. Denlinger, 52, of North Point Breeze, had worked in management at the co-op for five weeks, but resigned his management position shortly before starting the union.
"The United Co-operative Workers is a concept for a genuinely grass-roots, and hence truly radical [union], as well as [a] low-cost union alternative," he wrote in a position paper.
Mr. Denlinger opposed the higher dues of the IWW -- a sliding scale ranging from $6 to $18 per month -- and worried that the co-op workers would lose their independence if they affiliated with another group.
Plus, he just had a bad feeling about the whole thing.
"My response here is essentially intuitive," he said. "Maybe it's because I'm reading that book by Gavin de Becker, 'The Gift of Fear,' but my intuition is saying 'No, no, no ... danger.' "
By July 6, a majority of the approximately 50 co-op workers signed cards indicating their desire to join the IWW -- a count verified by the Thomas Merton Center.
The general manager of the co-op, Rob Baran, declined to recognize the card check results, opting instead to hold a secret ballot election, said Ms. Clampitt.
Mike Q. Roth, president of the co-op's board, said that the board had decided to leave all decisions about the unionization drives to Mr. Baran, who could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Denlinger is trying to collect signature cards from 30 percent of the workers in order to get his union onto the secret ballot as well. He said that while no formal deadline has been set, he believes that the issue will be resolved by the end of the month.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Workers Prevail in Independent Union Authorization Card Count
Majority of East End Food Co-op Workers Demand Union.
PITTSBURGH, PA—A clear majority of workers have chosen union representation at the East End Food Co-op, Pittsburgh’s only member-owned natural and organic food market. The East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), held an independent union authorization card count after their employer refused to accept the workers’ signed cards as democratic proof of union support. The Thomas Merton Center, a well-known and respected peace and social justice organization since 1972, facilitated the card count and verified the results on July 6, 2006.
On behalf of the Thomas Merton Center, Board member Michelle Burton Brown stated in a written declaration of confirmation, “The East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, an affiliate of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), has obtained a clear majority of workers who wish to have the IWW serve as their exclusive bargaining agent for the purposes of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement covering wages, hours, and all other terms and conditions of employment with their employer, the East End Food Co-op.”
“We couldn’t be more pleased with these results,” said Hope Anne Nathan, a Co-op worker. “We’ve worked really hard to reach out to all of our co-workers and discuss the union so they could make an informed decision. Workers’ support for the union was obvious to us. Now we’ve clearly proved it with a neutral, third-party counting the cards and recognizing the Workers Committee as the bargaining agent.”
Evan W. Wolfson, another Co-op employee said, “The law doesn’t yet compel employers to accept the results of an authorization card-count, but we’re certain that most Co-op’s shoppers and advertisers understand what happens when workers feel disrespected and voiceless. The quality of the Co-op is going to suffer if management doesn’t start listening to their employees.”
The Workers Committee began its organizing drive with the IWW on May 15, 2006 to improve working conditions, pay and benefits, and to address long-standing issues of low staff morale and high turnover. The Co-op employs approximately 50 workers who would be covered by a labor contract should the union prevail in its quest for legal bargaining rights.
At the June 26th meeting of the Co-op Board of Directors, the Board and General Manager heard several testimonials from employees and Co-op members overwhelmingly in favor of unionization and the card-check process. Without making a statement either for or against the union, the Board abruptly departed from it previous practice of dealing with the union and delegated authority and control over union matters to the store’s General Manager. Since then, management has disavowed the card-check process in favor of a secretive ballot election and has hired Braun Consulting Group, based in Seattle, Washington – a known union-avoidance firm with experience in dealing with union campaigns at consumer co-operatives.
Contact:
Stacey Clampitt - East End Food Co-op Workers Committee
Phone - (412) 758-9045,
Email - WeRunItIU460@yahoo.com
Address - PO Box 90315, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, USA
PITTSBURGH, PA—A clear majority of workers have chosen union representation at the East End Food Co-op, Pittsburgh’s only member-owned natural and organic food market. The East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), held an independent union authorization card count after their employer refused to accept the workers’ signed cards as democratic proof of union support. The Thomas Merton Center, a well-known and respected peace and social justice organization since 1972, facilitated the card count and verified the results on July 6, 2006.
On behalf of the Thomas Merton Center, Board member Michelle Burton Brown stated in a written declaration of confirmation, “The East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, an affiliate of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), has obtained a clear majority of workers who wish to have the IWW serve as their exclusive bargaining agent for the purposes of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement covering wages, hours, and all other terms and conditions of employment with their employer, the East End Food Co-op.”
“We couldn’t be more pleased with these results,” said Hope Anne Nathan, a Co-op worker. “We’ve worked really hard to reach out to all of our co-workers and discuss the union so they could make an informed decision. Workers’ support for the union was obvious to us. Now we’ve clearly proved it with a neutral, third-party counting the cards and recognizing the Workers Committee as the bargaining agent.”
Evan W. Wolfson, another Co-op employee said, “The law doesn’t yet compel employers to accept the results of an authorization card-count, but we’re certain that most Co-op’s shoppers and advertisers understand what happens when workers feel disrespected and voiceless. The quality of the Co-op is going to suffer if management doesn’t start listening to their employees.”
The Workers Committee began its organizing drive with the IWW on May 15, 2006 to improve working conditions, pay and benefits, and to address long-standing issues of low staff morale and high turnover. The Co-op employs approximately 50 workers who would be covered by a labor contract should the union prevail in its quest for legal bargaining rights.
At the June 26th meeting of the Co-op Board of Directors, the Board and General Manager heard several testimonials from employees and Co-op members overwhelmingly in favor of unionization and the card-check process. Without making a statement either for or against the union, the Board abruptly departed from it previous practice of dealing with the union and delegated authority and control over union matters to the store’s General Manager. Since then, management has disavowed the card-check process in favor of a secretive ballot election and has hired Braun Consulting Group, based in Seattle, Washington – a known union-avoidance firm with experience in dealing with union campaigns at consumer co-operatives.
Contact:
Stacey Clampitt - East End Food Co-op Workers Committee
Phone - (412) 758-9045,
Email - WeRunItIU460@yahoo.com
Address - PO Box 90315, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, USA
Thursday, July 6, 2006
Co-op or Co-optation?
By Charlie Deitch - Pittsburgh City Paper, July 6, 2006
For the third time since 1993, workers at the 50-employee East End Food Co-op are mounting a drive to join the Industrial Workers of the World union. This time around, they’ve received a less-negative reaction from management — only to see their efforts stymied in a novel way.
“Management has been much more favorable to the idea of a union than management in the past had been,” Co-op staffer Stacey Clampitt told City Paper while the drive was building. But on June 28, a Co-op management employee resigned to become a wage-earning worker … and began circulating fliers for a different union — one that does not seem to exist.
Located in Point Breeze, the 30-year-old Co-op is owned by dues-paying members, who count on it for natural foods and its vegetarian café. But in the past, the organization’s board has resisted union organizing, especially in the face of competition from the Whole Foods outlet in East Liberty.
In a statement on June 22, Clampitt and another member of the East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, Evan W. Wolfson, said the current union drive was intended “to improve working conditions, pay and benefits, and to address long-standing issues of low staff morale and high turnover.”
On June 27, Workers Committee members met with the Co-op board to determine whether the Co-op would voluntarily recognize the new union if a majority of staffers signed registration cards. The Co-op could also opt for a lengthier ratification process involving the National Labor Relations Board, but instead it put the decision in the hands of Co-op General Manager Rob Baran. Baran says he’s wary of going through a drawn-out NLRB-supervised process too, and would like to resolve the issue by late July. He and the Workers Committee have already discussed possible approaches to conducting an election.
But Baran acknowledges that a management employee “resigned from the management team a day after the board meeting” — and then began circulating fliers for another union. He did not identify the employee, but on June 28 Co-op workers began receiving fliers in their employee mailboxes, urging them to accept the United Co-operative Workers union instead of the IWW.
The flier — a one-page document that mostly speaks against previous unionizing efforts at the Co-op — lists the e-mail address of Supplement Buyer Dan Denlinger as a contact. Denlinger could not be reached for comment by press time.
“The flier was obviously homemade,” says Clampitt, who is an occasional freelance photographer for City Paper. “I have never heard of that [UCW].”
A Google search for the union turns up empty.
“I’ve never before heard of the United Co-operative Workers” either, says Kevin Farcus, a national IWW organizer. “My guess is, it’s made up.” The flier, Farcus points out, “doesn’t advertise any affiliation with a larger [union] body.”
The flier also contains an anonymous employee complaint about monthly $18 IWW dues — they are actually $6, says Clampitt — while promoting United Co-operative Workers membership for a single penny each month.
“From our perspective, this is absolutely a union-busting technique,” Farcus says. “I’ve seen it before, where management sends in a sympathetic employee with a wink and a nod to start another union. It’s an end-run around the National Labor Relations Act, and a lot of people are pretty wise to it. You have to consider the timeline of this. It just appeared overnight, and that’s kind of suspicious.”
Baran says he understands the suspicion, but says management had absolutely nothing to do with the fliers. He says the current management team, which is completely different than the team that fought off the 2003 union drive, has no intention of engaging in union-busting.
The second union drive, he says, “has unfortunately caused a messy situation and has clouded the water a bit.” But he maintains, “We have to follow the law and treat both union drives the same.
“This is completely the staff’s decision, it’s their choice and not for us to have a say in.”
The Workers Committee will be meeting again, Farcus says, and all sides will sit down soon to discuss the way forward. Clampitt says Baran has assured her that management was not involved in the second union’s sudden appearance.
Still, she says, “Regardless of who is behind this, it’s going to seriously delay the process. I’m not as optimistic as I was before.”
For the third time since 1993, workers at the 50-employee East End Food Co-op are mounting a drive to join the Industrial Workers of the World union. This time around, they’ve received a less-negative reaction from management — only to see their efforts stymied in a novel way.
“Management has been much more favorable to the idea of a union than management in the past had been,” Co-op staffer Stacey Clampitt told City Paper while the drive was building. But on June 28, a Co-op management employee resigned to become a wage-earning worker … and began circulating fliers for a different union — one that does not seem to exist.
Located in Point Breeze, the 30-year-old Co-op is owned by dues-paying members, who count on it for natural foods and its vegetarian café. But in the past, the organization’s board has resisted union organizing, especially in the face of competition from the Whole Foods outlet in East Liberty.
In a statement on June 22, Clampitt and another member of the East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, Evan W. Wolfson, said the current union drive was intended “to improve working conditions, pay and benefits, and to address long-standing issues of low staff morale and high turnover.”
On June 27, Workers Committee members met with the Co-op board to determine whether the Co-op would voluntarily recognize the new union if a majority of staffers signed registration cards. The Co-op could also opt for a lengthier ratification process involving the National Labor Relations Board, but instead it put the decision in the hands of Co-op General Manager Rob Baran. Baran says he’s wary of going through a drawn-out NLRB-supervised process too, and would like to resolve the issue by late July. He and the Workers Committee have already discussed possible approaches to conducting an election.
But Baran acknowledges that a management employee “resigned from the management team a day after the board meeting” — and then began circulating fliers for another union. He did not identify the employee, but on June 28 Co-op workers began receiving fliers in their employee mailboxes, urging them to accept the United Co-operative Workers union instead of the IWW.
The flier — a one-page document that mostly speaks against previous unionizing efforts at the Co-op — lists the e-mail address of Supplement Buyer Dan Denlinger as a contact. Denlinger could not be reached for comment by press time.
“The flier was obviously homemade,” says Clampitt, who is an occasional freelance photographer for City Paper. “I have never heard of that [UCW].”
A Google search for the union turns up empty.
“I’ve never before heard of the United Co-operative Workers” either, says Kevin Farcus, a national IWW organizer. “My guess is, it’s made up.” The flier, Farcus points out, “doesn’t advertise any affiliation with a larger [union] body.”
The flier also contains an anonymous employee complaint about monthly $18 IWW dues — they are actually $6, says Clampitt — while promoting United Co-operative Workers membership for a single penny each month.
“From our perspective, this is absolutely a union-busting technique,” Farcus says. “I’ve seen it before, where management sends in a sympathetic employee with a wink and a nod to start another union. It’s an end-run around the National Labor Relations Act, and a lot of people are pretty wise to it. You have to consider the timeline of this. It just appeared overnight, and that’s kind of suspicious.”
Baran says he understands the suspicion, but says management had absolutely nothing to do with the fliers. He says the current management team, which is completely different than the team that fought off the 2003 union drive, has no intention of engaging in union-busting.
The second union drive, he says, “has unfortunately caused a messy situation and has clouded the water a bit.” But he maintains, “We have to follow the law and treat both union drives the same.
“This is completely the staff’s decision, it’s their choice and not for us to have a say in.”
The Workers Committee will be meeting again, Farcus says, and all sides will sit down soon to discuss the way forward. Clampitt says Baran has assured her that management was not involved in the second union’s sudden appearance.
Still, she says, “Regardless of who is behind this, it’s going to seriously delay the process. I’m not as optimistic as I was before.”
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