NLRB says painting contractor broke federal labor law
Nonunion Edwards
Painting of Oregon
City will go before a
judge May 6
By DON McINTOSH
Associate Editor
The owners of family-run Edwards
Painting, based in Oregon City, may
not want a union, but federal law says
workers have the right to unionize
whether an employer likes it or not.
Judging by an 11-page complaint is-
sued by the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) Feb. 27, the Edwards
clan ran right over that law.
As outlined in the complaint, own-
ers Gene and Connie Edwards and their
son Grant, a foreman, repeatedly inter-
rogated employees about their union
activities during the summer of 2013.
Workers were ordered not to “stir up
union stuff,” were told that Edwards is
not and will never be a union shop, and
were threatened with termination if
they attended a union meeting or were
found to be union members. Grant Ed-
wards told workers the company would
have work for them through the winter
— if they stopped talking about and
trying to organize a union. He also told
employees their working conditions
would improve if they removed their
union T-shirts. The union is mafia, he
told workers, and it’s trying to steal
their work.
Edwards did some hiring, but re-
fused to consider four pro-union appli-
cants, including one who had decades
of experience as a painter. Connie Ed-
wards told applicants Edwards doesn’t
hire union painters.
Gene Edwards promised wage in-
creases if workers would stop support-
ing the union. He also threatened to fire
them if they signed a pro-union peti-
tion, ordered them not to hand out
union fliers on the job site, and called
the police when some employees dis-
tributed union fliers to coworkers at the
office. By the end of the year, Edwards
had fired four pro-union workers.
The company failed to respond to
the NLRB’s complaint before a March
13 deadline, but company owner Gene
Edwards did file a response two weeks
later, categorically denying most of the
allegations. One exception: Edwards
admitted he called the police, but said it
was “because of the altercation that ap-
peared to be about to take place.”
Over 20,000 charges a year are filed
alleging violations of the National La-
bor Relations Act, the federal labor law
that protects workers rights to unionize,
but only about 6 percent of those
charges — known as “unfair labor
practice” charges — result in a formal
“complaint.” In part, that’s because the
NLRB (the agency responsible for en-
forcing the act) doesn’t issue a com-
plaint unless it finds enough evidence
to think it can win a case before a fed-
eral administrative law judge. It wasn’t
hard to find evidence at Edwards Paint-
ing — a contractor with about 20 em-
ployees that does a fair amount of com-
mercial painting work for general
contractor Walsh Construction.
It helped that workers there knew
the law, and took notes. Some of them,
in fact, were “salts,” — union activists
who applied for jobs at Edwards in or-
der to organize a union.
One of them was Scott Oldham — a
veteran painter who became a staff or-
ganizer with Painters District Council
5 in 2010. Oldham says union painters
had watched as Edwards underbid their
employers — paying inexperienced
workers far below the union scale, and
not providing much training.
“We felt this was the bottom of the
barrel,” Oldham said. “These are the
workers who are most exploited.”
So District Council 5 sent in “salts,”
as the underground organizers are re-
ferred to in union parlance. As far as
the NLRB is concerned, salts have the
Painters District Council 5 organizer Scott Oldham says an Oregon City
painting contractor called police when he showed up to pass out fliers.
same rights as other employees.
Oldham said some Edwards work-
ers, as they got to know the experi-
enced union painters, decided that
union pay, benefits, and apprenticeship
training were pretty appealing. Just
over half signed a union petition. Oth-
ers were leery. But employer tactics —
including the terminations — put a
chill on support for unionizing, Old-
ham said, and it’s not clear there’s ma-
jority support for a union now.
A federal administrative law judge
is scheduled to hear the case May 6.
Unionists to bowl for Muscular
Dystrophy Association on April 13
The 25th annual Labor Bowl Chal-
lenge for the Muscular Dystrophy As-
sociation will be held Sunday, April 13,
at Sunset Lanes in Beaverton.
The Labor Bowl Challenge consists
of four-person teams that compete for
prizes. Money is raised through pledges
and from a silent auction, and goes to
buy wheelchairs and braces for chil-
dren, as well as for research and sum-
mer camps. Since the Labor Bowl be-
gan in 1989, union members have
donated $351,025 to MDA.
Credit union to
celebrate 60th
anniversary April 15
Mark your calendars for Tuesday,
April 15, to attend the IBEW & United
Workers Federal Credit Union’s 60th
anniversary annual meeting.
The meeting will be held at the
IBEW Local 48 Hall, 15937 NE Air-
port Way, Portland, starting at 7 p.m.
For more information, call the credit
union at 503-253-8193.
Low Prices!
Muscular dystrophy is a hereditary
condition marked by a progressive
weakening and wasting of the muscles
over time.
The event is coordinated by the Na-
tional Association of Letter Carriers
(NALC) Branch 82 and the Northwest
Oregon Labor Council.
For more information, or to sign up
and receive fundraising packets and in-
structions, call Jim Falvey, president of
Letter Carriers Branch 82 at 503-493-
5903. To donate silent auction items,
call NALC’s MDA Coordinator Debby
Burbank at 971-404-5384.
...Strike averted
(From Page 1)
since it answers most objections mem-
bers had to the earlier versions.
DCTU bargaining team members
were unified in supporting this agree-
ment, whereas last time, the ratification
process was complicated by the fact
that Laborers Local 483 representatives
on the bargaining team didn’t vote for
the tentative agreement, yet felt con-
strained by the democratic nature of
coalition work not to speak against it.
Public sector bargaining team members
are also obliged by state law to recom-
mend passage if they sign a tentative
agreement.
Broadway Floral
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APRIL 4, 2014
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