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Phil Woodman accused of trying to bust grocery workers union

Mark Lundey  —  5/14/2008 7:00 am

A move is under way to get rid of the long-established unions at area Woodman's grocery stores and union leaders are pointing the finger at owner Phil Woodman.

"The question everyone is asking is why is Phil Woodman taking such an aggressive stance against his hard-working employees,'' said John Eiden, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473, which represents Woodman's grocery workers and meat cutters.

A spokesman for Woodman says it's the workers themselves who are questioning the value of being in the union.

Eiden said Woodman's and the union have a 50-year history of negotiating fair contracts that "enabled union members to provide for their families" and helped "make Woodman's the successful business it is today.''

On April 30, according to union officials, Woodman's "unlawfully" withdrew recognition of the grocery workers union. That move came after petitions were filed in March with the National Labor Relations Board to decertify that bargaining unit. The meat cutters, who are also part of Local 1473, were not involved in the decertification petition.

Whether union members or management filed the petition to decertify grocery workers is in dispute. A decision by the NLRB is pending.

The petition affects Woodman's unionized stores in Madison, Beloit and Janesville. Union officials said a petition circulated at the Onalaska store was withdrawn on April 2 because of "substantial'' support for the union at that location.

In order to file a decertification petition, according to union officials, 30 percent of union members in a given bargaining unit need to sign a petition asking for a union election. If the signatures are legitimate, the National Labor Relations Board then conducts an election to determine whether a majority of workers still want the union to continue to represent them.

Nicky Coolberth of the UFCW office in Washington, D.C., claims Phil Woodman is trying to decertify the union.

"The danger is that with no union, the workers are subject to being fired without due process and backing from a union,'' Coolberth said.

Woodman declined to be interviewed, referring questions to Fred Grubb, whose Vermont-based consulting firm is representing Woodman's on labor issues before the NLRB.

"He's not behind it and hasn't in any way helped to make the decertification happen,'' Grubb said, defending his client in an e-mail. "The union employees -- not management -- filed a petition (in January) to have an election to see if the union still had majority support. The union then used every legal tactic it could to delay the election.

"Evidently, the union employees got tired of this and put together another petition -- this time signed by 522 employees -- stating specifically that they no longer want to be represented by Local 1473,'' Grubb said. "The union employees are the ones who have rid themselves of Local 1473 -- not management."

But union leaders allege Woodman's management engaged in dirty tricks and on March 14 and March 18 filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, citing approximately 27 independent violations of federal labor law against Woodman's, including:

* Supervisors' and managers' involvement in circulating the decertification petitions

* Threatening employees with deportation and other unspecified acts of reprisal if they supported the union and informing them not to talk in support of the union

* Retaliating and discriminating against employees, including reducing an employee's hours

* Telling employees to lie about their whereabouts in order to avoid testimony to the NLRB

* Terminating an employee because of his open support for the union.

On April 22 the union filed additional labor practice charges that included 28 more independent violations of federal labor law against Woodman's.

Included in that filing were charges that Woodman's threatened employees with termination, interrogated employees about their support for the union and informed employees that it was futile to support the union.

"People were misled from day one about whether the union was in or out,'' said a Woodman's employee who asked to remain anonymous. "It's not true that people weren't pressured to sign'' the decertification petition.

She also said employees were led to believe they were signing a petition to decide whether to put union decertification to a vote when in reality the petition turned out to be one stating they no longer wanted a union at all.

Many employees "didn't even know what they were signing,'' the employee said, noting the large number of foreign-born employees at Woodman's. "I don't feel the people were fairly informed."

On May 8, Citizens Action of Wisconsin held a rally in Janesville in support of the Woodman's workers union. The crowd was estimated at 250.

"It is very obvious that this is not an issue that is going to go away anytime soon,'' said Eiden of Local 1473. "Our goal is to get back to the bargaining table."

Mark Lundey  —  5/14/2008 7:00 am