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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2010)
May 7, 2010:NWLP 5/4/10 10:12 AM Page 4 NLRB rules BrucePac firings broke federal labor law By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor BrucePac broke federal labor law when it fired workers last June for sup- porting a union campaign, said an April 8 judge’s ruling. The case stems from unfair labor practice charges that Port- land-headquartered Laborers Local 296 filed last July against BrucePac — a cooked meat producer with plants in Woodburn and Silverton, Oregon. Altogether, Local 296 accused Bru- cePac of firing 17 union supporters and disguising the firings in a 42-worker mass layoff. Agents of the National La- bor Relations Board (NLRB) con- cluded there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue charges in 13 of the firings, but issued a complaint in four, and held a trial Feb. 8-10 before administrative law judge Lana Parke. It’s against federal law for an em- ployer to fire a worker for union activ- ity. Proving it is another matter. The NLRB, responsible for protect- ing workers’ union rights, is possibly the most feeble federal law enforce- ment agency. It waits until someone files a complaint, takes statements from each side, and if no “smoking gun” ev- idence emerges, drops the charge. It doesn’t visit the work site, subpoena documents, or compel testimony from anyone. Employers know that the worst PAGE 4 BrucePac sanitation worker Manuel Coria, fired for seeking to join Laborers Local 296, testifies Feb. 8 at an unfair labor practice hearing before a federal administrative law judge. The judge ordered BrucePac to reinstate Coria and two other workers, but thus far the company has not complied. consequence they face for firing pro- union workers is a court order to rein- state them with back pay — minus any money the workers earned elsewhere after the firing. At BrucePac, firings took place at both locations, on every shift, in every department — operations, sanitation, maintenance, quality assurance, ac- counting. But shifts and locations var- ied greatly in the percentage of em- ployees laid off. To Local 296, it seemed obvious that the “layoffs” were about decapitating the union campaign. In a workplace of about 350, 42 work- ers were laid off — one month after a union campaign began. Included in the layoff were Luis Coria, who had called the union in the first place, his brother Manuel, and almost every individual NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS who had attended three pro-union meetings at Manuel’s house. In all, 17 workers known to the union as sup- porters — many of them the most ex- perienced in their departments — were terminated. Local 296 denounced the firings, put pickets up outside BrucePac, and filed 18 charges with the NLRB. But for the NLRB to prosecute an employer, it’s not enough to show that a pro-union worker was fired. The NLRB must be shown that the worker took pro-union action, that the em- ployer knew about it, and that the em- ployer opposed unionization. If those three things are shown, the burden of proof shifts to the employer — to show that it would have fired the worker any- way for some other reason. BrucePac, represented by the law firm Jackson Lewis, told NLRB agents it didn’t know that the terminated workers were union supporters, so it couldn’t have fired them for being union supporters. In most of the cases, Local 296 had no way to prove other- wise, and those charges were dis- missed. But on the day-shift in the sanitation department at the Silverton plant, su- pervisor Abel Esparza slipped up. Ten days before the firings, Esparza had called BrucePac worker Maria Estelle Cortez on her cell phone as she was carpooling home with co-worker Laura Jimenez deCordoba. Esparza asked Cortez to confirm that workers were forming a group to bring in the union, and mentioned her husband, Jose Car- men Maciel, and his co-worker Manuel Coria, by name. Esparza said it was a delicate thing; he had a raise for Maciel and Coria, but they needed to be care- ful. Esparza told Cortez he knew a union meeting was scheduled the fol- lowing day (and it was, in fact) and that on Monday, he “would know.” Ten days later, the mass layoff hit four workers in the Silverton sanitation department day shift: Coria and Ma- ciel, and also Daniel Luna and Federico Nieves Rojas. Coria and Maciel were the most senior of the 13 sanitation workers on their shift. Later, a terminated worker from the Silverton sanitation night shift, Mauro Navarro, asked Esparza, his friend of 15 years, why workers had been laid off. Esparza said he’d chosen the day- shift sanitation workers for layoff be- cause they were stirring things up, meeting with the union. At trial, those two conversations made it harder for BrucePac to deny it knew about the union campaign, (Turn to Page 6) MAY 7, 2010
