... Worker firings lead to union effort at Dave’s Killer Bread
(From Page 3)
Turner told Lansing.
Lansing interviewed several fired
workers and says he found a pattern: It
was the squeaky wheels — the as-
sertive ones who spoke up or com-
plained — who were being fired, for
what seemed to him like trivial or man-
ufactured infractions.
Mixing room worker Alex Martinez
— who’d been a union member at
Union Pacific railroad and in Iron
Workers Local 29 — complained about
management favoritism, an inflexible
time clock point system, and having to
wait for reviews to get a raise. He told
co-workers it would not be like that if
they had a union. Then managers
started scrutinizing his breaks. He was
fired Sept. 19 when car trouble made
him 20 minutes late, despite having
called in about it.
Lead mixer Jacob Adams — who’d
fallen in love with the company after
serving time for burglary and bank rob-
bery — grew disillusioned by fall 2011,
and complained to managers that his
crew members weren’t getting their re-
views. A week later, he was accused of
uttering a racial epithet and throwing a
mixing bowl, both of which he denies.
Lansing offered to represent Adams
in pursuing an unemployment claim.
In Oregon, workers who quit or are
fired for just cause don’t normally qual-
ify for unemployment insurance bene-
fits, but if a state adjudicator finds that
there were extenuating circumstances
or they were fired through no fault of
their own, they may qualify. Employ-
ers sometimes contest the claim be-
cause they feel a worker was justly
fired and doesn’t deserve benefits; they
also have an economic incentive to op-
pose it, because unemployment insur-
ance is “experience rated,” meaning
employers who terminate a lot of em-
ployees pay a higher premium. When
an unemployment claim is contested,
the determination is made by an ad-
ministrative law judge, usually after a
hearing conducted by telephone.
When Lansing joined in the Jan. 9
phone hearing for Jacob Adams, it took
the company by surprise; Glenn Dahl
joined the call.
But the next time Lansing took part
in such a hearing, for fired worker Jar-
rell Bronson, Dave’s Killer Bread was
represented by an attorney from the na-
tionally-known employer-side labor
law firm Fisher & Phillips.
Both workers were awarded unem-
ployment benefits.
But fear was thick at Dave’s Killer
Bread among workers, Lansing says,
and firings continued: An informal
count by current and ex-employees at
one union meeting produced the names
Busted!
We order you: Tell us what the union rep said
Fred Meyer is accused of several labor law violations at its Or-
chards store in Vancouver, Washington. According to three separate
charges filed by United Food and Commercial Workers Local
555, managers interrogated workers about conversations they had
with union reps, announced a rule restricting workers ability to en-
gage in certain union activities, and harassed, intimidated and fired
a union steward. Most recently, the union accuses Fred Meyer of
changing another worker’s schedule in retaliation for her having
testified in support of the earlier charges. The NRLB is investigat-
ing the charges.
No solicitation … except if it’s against the union
At Oregon Child Development Coalition in Wilsonville, Labor-
ers Local 320 says management allowed anti-union employees to
circulate a decertification petition during work times and in work
areas, but doesn’t allow any other kind of solicitation. Union oppo-
nents filed the decertification petition March 9 with signatures of at
least 30 percent in the 55-worker unit. But the NLRB ordered the
election blocked until the charge can be investigated.
If you don’t like it, maybe you should go to Russia
A worker at Russian-owned Evraz Oregon Steel Mills alleges he
was demoted, removed from the schedule for three days, and re-
quired to sign a “last chance” agreement as a condition of returning
to work … in order to discourage his affiliation with International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 8. Oregon Steel Mills has
been nonunion at its Portland operation since the early 1980s.
PAGE 8
UNION OF FIRED WORKERS: A rash of worker firings at Dave’s Killer
Bread is driving workers to seek unionization. Above, Bakers Local 114
Secretary-Treasurer Terry Lansing (left) stands with Alex Martinez, Jacob
Adams, Jordan Reece, and Dan Turner. The four are among six fired workers
who have been named thus far in charges that are pending investigation by the
National Labor Relations Board. In the charges, Local 114 alleges that the
company fired the workers because of union activities or because they
advocated on behalf of co-workers. The workers say at least two dozen
employees have been fired at the company since August 2011.
of 23 workers who’d been fired since
the summer — roughly one in 10 peo-
ple employed at Dave’s Killer Bread.
In February, Lansing decided to pur-
sue an unusual strategy. Normally, be-
cause employers tend to fight unioniza-
tion, union organizing campaigns
operate clandestinely at first, gathering
a critical mass of worker support while
trying to avoid the attention (and ire) of
management. But at Dave’s, workers
were being fired at such a rate that
Lansing felt something had to be done
to protect union supporters. It’s illegal
for an employer to fire a worker for aid-
ing a union campaign, but Lansing has
learned the hard way that it happens
quite often. Employers who don’t want
a union will fire union supporters using
some other reason as a pretext, and then
escape legal repercussions by telling
the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) they didn’t know those work-
ers were union supporters. If workers
can’t prove managers knew they were
union supporters, they lose their cases
— and their right to back pay and rein-
statement.
So Lansing decided to make it im-
possible for Dave’s Killer Bread to
deny that it knew. He began writing let-
ters to Glenn Dahl, identifying specific
workers as union supporters.
Dan Turner was the first to be iden-
tified, in a Feb. 2 letter.
The following day, Lansing went to
the NLRB and filed two charges, alleg-
ing that Dave’s Killer Bread violated
federal labor law both when it installed
cameras in the lunchroom and smoking
area, and when it fired employees Ja-
cob Adams and Teresa Chaney. The
charge was not that Dave’s fired the
workers for union activity, but for
speaking out, and sticking up for co-
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
workers — which are also protected
rights under the National Labor Rela-
tions Act.
On Feb. 7, Lansing wrote to Glenn
Dahl inviting him to discuss the possi-
bility of card-check union recognition,
a less adversarial method of unionizing,
in which workers sign union cards if
they want to join, and the employer rec-
ognizes the union if a majority sign the
cards. Dahl declined the offer by letter
the following day.
More NLRB charges followed.
Three of the charges alleged unlawful
terminations, and another called out the
company for prohibiting employees
from talking about Local 114 while at
work, and for new rules prohibiting
employees from posting items on the
employee bulletin board without prior
authorization — after some workers
posted union business cards on the
board.
Several days after Turner was outed
as a union supporter, he was asked to
turn in his office keys. In the weeks that
followed, he began to feel like he had a
target on his back, and he says he was
written up for nitpicky infractions.
But Glenn Dahl had said he re-
spected his employees’ right to a union,
and Turner took him at his word. On
Feb. 24, Turner went to meet with
Dahl. Glenn Dahl owns a 51 percent
share of the privately-held business Na-
tureBake, which he bought from his fa-
ther in 1988; Glenn’s son Shobi and his
brother Dave own the remainder. Na-
tureBake also does business as Dave’s
Killer Bread.
“You should have talked to me be-
fore you went to the union,” Turner
says Glenn Dahl told him. Turner told
Glenn his reasons for supporting the
union. Glenn asked Turner to name
three things he could improve about the
business, and to give him another
chance, just as Turner had been given
a chance. Turner’s suggestion: Glenn
could let the union come into the plant
for one day to talk to workers.
Five days after the meeting with
Glenn Dahl, Turner was ordered to re-
port to the office. There, his manager, a
human resources employee, and Shobi
Dahl confronted him, accusing him of
stealing something off a loading dock
at Unified Grocers. Turner says he was
never told what it was he was alleged
to have stolen. But he was suspended
without pay, pending investigation. He
learned he was fired on March 7.
Clackamas County Sheriff’s office
has no recent report of theft at that lo-
cation, nor were charges filed with the
police.
After he was fired, Turner got a let-
ter saying that his health benefits had
been terminated effective the day he
was suspended.
Turner says it’s easy to try to pin
such accusations on a felon, but insists
he’s innocent.
“I had a lot to lose,” he tells the La-
bor Press. Since his release from fed-
eral prison in 2006, he’s been rebuild-
ing his life. A former drug addict, he’s
been attending Clark College studying
to become a drug and alcohol coun-
selor. He married Amanda Thompson,
and they bought a house last year. She
works for the City of Vancouver, where
she’s a member of AFSCME, and a for-
mer union steward with Office and Pro-
fessional Employees Local 11. At one
point, Turner recalls, she worried that
he’d lose his job if got active in a union
campaign.
“I really believed they needed a
union at Dave’s,” Turner tells the Labor
Press. “They still do.”
“We know that the Bakery Confec-
tionery Tobacco and Grain Millers
would like to form a union at Nature-
Bake and Dave’s Killer Bread to repre-
sent some of our employees, and we re-
spect our employees’ rights to
unionize,” says Shobi Dahl.
Dahl wouldn’t say, however,
whether the company is discouraging
workers from unionizing or whether it
intends to employ union avoidance
consultants. Nor would he divulge the
company’s disciplinary and pay poli-
cies, or comment on specifics about the
fired employees. A company media
policy forbids employees to talk to re-
porters without authorization, and Dahl
declined to make any employees avail-
able for interview with authorization.
He said he was unaware if the com-
pany is receiving tax credits for hiring
felons, but said employing them fits the
company’s mission, which is to make
the world a better place one loaf of
bread at a time.
The NLRB is investigating seven
charges against Dave’s Killer Bread.
Dave’s Killer Bread is sold in eight
states, at retailers including Costco,
WinCo Foods, New Seasons, Whole
Foods, Safeway, and Fred Meyer.
APRIL 6, 2012