Northwest labor press., May 07, 2010, Page 6, Image 6

May 7, 2010:NWLP
5/4/10
10:12 AM
Page 6
...Judge orders reinstatement of fired union supporters
(From Page 4)
though it tried. Esparza testified that he didn’t
know any of the four terminated workers were
pro-union, but the judge found the testimony of
Cortez and Navarro more credible.
BrucePac attorneys also argued that Esparza
wasn’t the one who made the decision to fire the
four workers. Assistant Sanitation Manager Os-
min Martinez testified that he was the one who se-
lected workers for layoff, and that he hadn’t
known about the union. Unlike with Esparza, the
union had no witnesses to contradict Martinez’as-
sertions.
Martinez further testified that in making the
layoff decisions, he sought no input from lower-
level supervisors, did not review personnel files,
and relied solely on his recollection of previous
oral reports from supervisors. He claimed that he
had taken only half an hour to decide how many
positions to eliminate from two shifts in the two
plants, and no more than another half hour to de-
cide which individuals to terminate. Asked why
these four in the Silverton day shift were chosen,
Martinez recalled in fuzzy detail some attitude
problems and infractions, but declined to produce
witnesses or evidence to back those claims. And
Martinez failed to remember that other workers
who were retained had committed similar infrac-
tions.
Local 296 Representative Jack Roy watched
the whole trial and said Martinez’ testimony was
an outright embarrassment. After every question
from the NLRB attorney, Martinez seemed to
PAGE 6
look to BrucePac attorneys for some sign, until
they stopped making eye contact with him and
kept their heads down.
“It was obvious,” Roy said. “He was pro-
grammed.”
In her written ruling, Judge Parke called Mar-
tinez’ testimony “implausible” and “vague” and
said “he seemed defensive if not resistant on cross
examination.” In a nutshell, Parke said she didn’t
believe anything Martinez said unless it was
backed up by someone else.
In her written decision, Parke ordered Bru-
cePac to cease and desist interrogating employees
about union activities, threatening employees with
unspecified reprisals for supporting the union, and
terminating employees for engaging in union ac-
tivities. She also ordered the company to offer re-
instatement and back pay to three of the fired
workers — Manuel Coria, Jose Carmen Maciel,
and Daniel Luna — and post a notice in the work-
place explaining all that and informing workers of
their right to form a union. As for the fourth
worker, Nieves, Parke found that past tardiness
made it plausible that he would have been laid off
anyway.
Parke gave BrucePac two weeks to comply
with the order, but as NLRB Seattle regional di-
rector Rich Ahearn explained to the Labor Press,
that timeline doesn’t have the force of law and
can’t, as a practical matter, be enforced.
BrucePac didn’t comply with the deadline, and
in fact, fired another union supporter — deCor-
doba — on March 30, according to a complaint
filed with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Indus-
ries. DeCordoba was present when Esparza called
Cortez, and had a harassment charge against Es-
parza that the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Indus-
tries is investigating.
BrucePac’s failure to reinstate within the
judge’s timeline may mean it plans to appeal her
ruling to the next level: the National Labor Rela-
tions Board in Washington, D.C. The company
had until May 6 to appeal, but had not done so
when this issue went to press May 4. An appeal
could drag out the case for months and years. The
Board seldom reverses judges’ decisions, but has
often been heavily backlogged in recent years. In
the last decade, the median length of time it has
taken — from the moment a judge’s decision is
appealed to moment the Board makes its decision
— has ranged from six to 21 months.
Aranda said he’s pleased that the judge ordered
three workers reinstated. But for Local 296, the
bigger picture is that 14 other pro-union workers
were fired without any consequence, and the 350-
plus workers who remain at BrucePac still need a
union.
In its initial investigation, the NLRB accepted
BrucePac’s explanation that the layoffs had a le-
gitimate business rationale — that it was because
of a continuing business downturn that had begun
in 2007. But Roy says the day after the layoff,
help wanted notices went up on BrucePac’s work-
place bulletin boards. New temporary employees
were brought in. And workers were asked to work
overtime.
Meanwhile, the trial seemed to show why Bru-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
cePac workers might want a union. Coria testified
that he arrived at the Silverton plant at 5:30 a.m.
for a 10-hour shift, four days a week. Wearing a
coat and two pairs of gloves, he pressure washed
floors, cleaning up blood that leaked from boxes
of meat. Handling hazardous chemicals, he
cleaned and sanitized machines and walk-in cool-
ers at temperatures of 20 below zero. He drove a
forklift, took out the trash, and trained as many as
10 new employees during the decade he worked at
BrucePac. All this for $10.75 an hour, $2.35 above
Oregon’s minimum wage.
So when his brother called the union, Coria got
involved. He encouraged coworkers to support the
union, hosted three union meetings at his home,
and spoke daily to co-workers about the union
during breaks in the company lunchroom.
After the final meeting, Coria distributed to co-
workers a union-created pamphlet entitled, “35
things your employer cannot do.”
One of 35 things was … fire workers for sup-
porting a union campaign.
CORRECTION
An article in the April 16 issue of the North-
west Labor Press misspelled the name of an Ore-
gon Department of Justice attorney. His name is
John Dunbar. Dunbar is defending Oregon Labor
Commissioner Brad Avakian in a lawsuit by two
business groups that are seeking to overturn the
Worker Freedom Act. The Labor Press regrets the
error.
MAY 7, 2010