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,
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MAY 7, 2010