The National Labor Relations Board has ordered a new union representation election at Nebraska Beef in Omaha after citing the company for labor practice violations during a vote four years ago.
The decision upheld a hearing officer's findings invalidating the results of a 2001 election in which workers rejected representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union on a 452-345 vote.
On Wednesday, UFCW Local 271 representatives distributed leaflets outside the meatpacking plant in south Omaha informing workers of the decision and seeking signatures on union authorization cards requesting union representation.
No date has been set for a new election, but it could come as early as this spring.
The labor board found Nebraska Beef — described as the country's largest privately held meatpacking plant — "engaged in improper interrogation of employees regarding their union sympathies" before the 2001 election and improperly prohibited employees from displaying union paraphernalia.
The board cited a plant supervisor's isolated threat to a worker that he would be fired because he was going to vote for the union as a factor contributing to its decision.
Union officials were elated by the action.
"It took a long time, but we are determined," Local 271 President Donna McDonald of Omaha said. "We haven't given up on those workers. We told them we were there for the long haul."
Early leafleting has generated "a very favorable response from employees," McDonald said.
The leaflets ask: "Are you ready to have a real voice on the job and be treated with the dignity, justice and respect workers deserve?"
Nebraska Beef did not respond to requests for comment.
Although the Omaha company's work force numbers may have declined recently, the plant normally employs 1,100 people and slaughters and processes 2,400 cattle a day.
Court documents filed by the company in 2003 said the plant generated $2.7 million in revenue per day.
The board's decision is the latest in a series of actions directed at Nebraska Beef by federal agencies during the past few years.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture alleged the company failed to correct a series of continuing food safety violations and temporarily removed federal Food Safety and Inspection Service personnel from the plant in 2003.
In 2000, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents raided the plant, detaining more than 200 Hispanic workers who were illegally in the country. The agency indicted a number of mid-level company managers on charges of recruiting illegal aliens and providing them with false immigration documentation.
Those charges subsequently were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf, who said INS deportation of the workers prior to adequately documenting evidence from them, or making them available for questioning by lawyers for the defendants, nullified the case.
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch, a privately-funded organization, criticized Nebraska Beef for alleged violation of labor laws in the 2001 union election.
The company, along with a pork plant in North Carolina and a poultry plant in Arkansas, were cited by the group for high injury rates, excessive production line speed, intimidation of immigrant workers and mistreatment of injured workers.
The union representation election at Nebraska Beef was held Aug. 16, 2001. The original ruling by a hearing officer was issued in January 2002 and appealed by the company to the NLRB.
The union represents nearly 1,000 meatpacking workers in Omaha, according to UFCW. The largest contingent is composed of production workers at the Swift and Co., plant, who voted for union representation in 2002.
Among the largest unionized meatpacking operations outside Omaha are plants in Dakota City, Grand Island and Schuyler.
Posted by UFCW 227 at April 21, 2005 02:03 PM