By a razor-slim margin (22-21), employees at the East End Food Co-op failed in their attempt to win legally guaranteed collective bargaining rights. On August 30th Co-op workers participated in a union recognition election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Voting turnout topped 84%, but the East End Food Co-op Workers Committee, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, fell just two votes short of a majority that would have given the union the right to bargain collectively over terms and conditions of employment. National labor law compels an employer to recognize a union for the purpose of collective bargaining if a majority of employees vote for the union in a secret-ballot election run by the NLRB.
The current Co-op organizing campaign, which began on May 15th 2006, is the second and most progressive attempt by employees to establish legally protected collective bargaining rights. In June the Co-op’s Board of Directors and General Manager refused to voluntarily recognize the union through the legally accepted union authorization card-check procedure, claiming that card counting was not a democratic indication of majority support for the union. In July the union held an independent card count and verified through the impartial Thomas Merton Center that a majority of Co-op workers did in fact support the union as their collective bargaining agent. Unable to move the Co-op into accepting such evidence, the union then tried to negotiate with management over terms for a non-NLRB election. During such talks the union unsuccessfully tried to establish a number of agreements over a basic meeting protocol, employer neutrality, and the Co-op’s continued use of known anti-union consultants. Additionally, the union felt that during such talks the employer was unfairly favoring an intervening party in the negotiations. Citing unnecessary complications to the process by management and certain impasse around particular issues, the union broke off negotiations with the Co-op in late July and petitioned the NLRB to facilitate a recognition election.
The union’s narrow loss in the election means that the Co-op is not legally obligated to recognize the union, nor is it compelled to negotiate a labor contract with the workers. Despite this setback for the union, the Workers Committee plans to continue organizing at the Co-op and to speak on behalf of its members and their desire for improved wages, better health care coverage, and job security. “As long as the East End Food Co-op continues to be yet another low-wage, high-turnover employer in this city,” said IWW organizer Kevin Farkas, “the union is committed to helping workers organize.” Farkas also added that the IWW would continue its affiliation with the Co-op Workers Committee “because the East End Food Co-op is typical of most employers in the consumer food co-operative industry. Despite their rhetoric of social consciousness and so-called alternative business practices, these are not the same grass-roots, collectively owned and operated co-operatives of the 1960s and 70s; today’s Co-ops are sophisticated businesses increasingly concerned with profit-making and complete managerial control over operations and staff. The industry as a whole, in part guided by specialized anti-union consultants such as the one used by the East End Food Co-op during this campaign, is simply opposed to unionization.”
Since the August 30th election, the Co-op union and the IWW have reviewed the proceedings and determined that there are grounds to contest the NLRB election. A challenge to the election would set aside the results until the Labor Board could hear any objections and rule on their validity. “With such a narrow outcome,” said Evan Wolfson of the Co-op Workers Committee, “we have an obligation to review the campaign carefully to make sure that no unfair labor practices were committed, thereby unfairly influencing the outcome. We think certain behaviors by management may be legally questionable; that’s why we’ve asked the Labor Board to investigate the situation.”
Mon, 09/11/2006 - 9:59am
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»Wed, 09/13/2006 - 3:55pm
The NLRB election is just one aspect of the organizing campaign at this Co-op, although it does carry significant legal ramifications such as legally protected bargaining rights. The union still contends that if all who supported the union voted (some were out of town or unavailable to vote) we would have won the vote, but only within a couple of votes of victory. Not a reassuring sign, for sure.
Before the campaign started to get bogged down in the “process” of meetings and negotiations over accepting card check and stipulating a non-NLRB election, the workers showed enormous support for collective bargaining. However, by election time there simply was no mandate for or against the union--something that astounds us because the issues around low wages, inferior benefits, and job insecurity have not gone away. Staff morale is still poor and not getting any better. Workers still endure a top-down management structure. What had changed over the course of the campaign was our ability to maintain a strong activist base and therefore keep the organizing solid.
The boss ran a predictable union avoidance campaign against us and without a doubt this hurt, but the real reason we lost momentum and support is that we lost the commitment of our activist base to stay engaged and focused on the needs of the campaign: face to face conversations about the union, omnipresent visibility in the workplace, and the need to frame the union as a democratic, member-run organization for positive change at the Co-op. Over time we lost half of the steering committee; people stopped coming to vital strategy meetings; it became harder for us to make informed tactical decisions, committees stopped working and people did not follow through on various tasks and assignments, and people stopped talking about the union in a positive and hopeful way—partly because they themselves did not have a clear enough understanding of the union to talk about it effectively (something that we tried to develop at each union meeting—if only people had come). When a group of workers eventually started an anti-union faction, we had no activist base to effectively or visibly counter their arguments against unionization. Without such ground floor activism or representation in each department to keep the movement vibrant, alive, and hopeful the undecided workers pretty much saw the question of union representation as confusing, divisive, confrontational, and/or unnecessary. But who could blame them; they probably never had the chance to engage in an honest conversation about the union because there were so few activists willing or able to do this.
As to the question of moving too fast toward an election, we had reasonably built the campaign in a deliberate and progressive manner based upon the support and interest of the workers. Card support topped 2/3 of the workers at its highest level; why would this not be an indication that the union was on solid ground? However, when the bottom fell out of the activist base (for a number reasons) we did our best to move the campaign forward with all available means because we hoped that at least there was still sufficient ideological support for and faith in the idea of having a union. But it's not enough to simply say that the activists lost hope and faith in the union and that's what hurt our movement; we need to understand that for whatever reason people stopped being involved, the union simply lost its ability to effectively educate, agitate, and organize workers at the Co-op. As I learned years ago as a new organizer, no amount of wishful thinking is going to create a union--it takes concrete activism, leadership, and the ability to get things done.Kevin Farkas, IWW organizer on the EEFC campaign
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»Mon, 10/23/2006 - 6:09pm
FW Kevin,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, which I just today came across!
I have another question for you - what level of support was the GMB able to provide to the folks inside the shop? Was it a significant factor in the drive's initial success?
I ask because our branch here in Boston is a bit smaller right now than Pittsburgh (though we're growing!) In working out our organizing strategy, we need to get a sense of what resources (time and $$) we'll have to come up with to support the efforts of FWs on the shop floor.
solidarity,
Bill B.
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»Tue, 10/31/2006 - 12:19pm
FW Bill, I'd be glad to discuss these details with you, but please email me at pittsburghiww@yahoo.com.
I will say this in a public forum--the EEFC Workers Committee could not have carried out this campaign without the generous solidarity support of the Pittsburgh GMB. Pgh IWW members dedicated significant resources for basic operational costs (e.g., money for printing flyers, etc.), as well as organizing an outside pressure campaign on the boss to drop the union-busting consultant. The GMB has an extensive database of labor and community activists, as well as media contacts and we were able to use this to our advantage. It also helped that the GMB's reputation lent credabiltity to the campaign as a legitimate labor organization with whom the EEFC Workers Committee affiliated.
Finally, it would be wise for any IWW campaign to take the time to develop significant union membership before proceeding toward such things as an NLRB recognition election. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stand as strong as a shop full of IWW members. Organize IWW membership among the workers, and shop organizing will be the better and easier for it. Don't trust that workers will join the IWW later. Organize the workers first, not the job. The GMB, as an established body, is such an organization to help do this.
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