LOVELAND, Colo. (PAI)--The United Food and Commercial Workers will get another shot at breaking through Wal-Mart’s anti-union blockade in the U.S., when 20 workers in its two auto service departments in the Loveland, Colo., supercenter vote on representation by the union’s Local 7.
In a Jan. 28 decision, National Labor Relations Board Denver regional director B. Allan Benson said the vote should go ahead even if Wal-Mart challenges his ruling. No date was set for the balloting, but Wal-Mart has until Feb. 11 to file such a challenge with the full NLRB in Washington
Benson’s decision comes just after a provincial labor relations board official in the Canadian province of British Columbia ruled on whether UFCW Local 1518 gathered enough cards for a vote to be recognized as bargaining representative for 70 Tire and Lube Express workers at seven Wal-Marts there.
Unlike in the U.S., the B.C. election must be held within 10 days of the ruling. But the Colorado ruling also covers auto service workers, as well as the tire and lube workers.
Benson said Local 7, after a short organizing drive at Loveland, got a signed majority of cards in December. Wal-Mart tried to stop it by arguing UFCW should have to organize among all 480 workers at the supercenter, but Benson turned that down.
"Employees in the auto center are greatly dependent upon one another for continued operation of the center itself and for their individual livelihoods," Benson said, citing a 1982 NLRB ruling, never challenged, on union units at Sears Auto Centers.
"Indeed, unlike the obvious interdependency of the auto center employees, the record reveals the absence of any close relationship between the work of the requested employees and any other group of employees in the retail store," Benson added.
Unlike the other case where UFCW won a Wal-Mart vote in the U.S., the company may have difficulty stopping unionization by shutting the Colorado operation. In Texas, Wal-Mart responded to UFCW’s success at unionizing 12 meatcutters at a supercenter by closing all of its on-site meatcutting nationwide.
But Benson wrote the Loveland Wal-Mart’s auto service department, like at least four others involved in prior NLRB rulings, is open for long hours six days a week.