Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated labor laws in its fight against a national union organizing drive originating at 14 Las Vegas stores, a federal official has ruled.
National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Albert Metz, acting on a complaint issued by the NLRB on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, last week ordered Wal-Mart to:
Metz presided over a trial Jan. 15-Feb. 28 in Las Vegas on a complaint filed by the NLRB on behalf of the union alleging numerous unfair labor practice violations between June 2000 and May 2001. He issued his ruling Tuesday and it was made public Friday.
The NLRB alleged more than 20 management personnel at three Las Vegas Wal-Mart stores at 3615 S. Rainbow Blvd., 3075 E. Tropicana Ave. and 1807 W. Craig Road disparaged workers -- including Avis Hammond and Norine Sorensen at the Rainbow store and Diana "Angie" Griego at the Tropicana store -- who showed union support and told them they weren't worthy of working at Wal-Mart or invited them to quit.
Metz ordered Wal-Mart to offer Griego, a former Wal-Mart sales floor associate, the job of pharmacy cashier, with back pay and other benefits plus interest. The retailer was also ordered to remove disciplinary records against Griego and Hammond.
The UFCW, which has a membership of about 8,000 people in the Las Vegas area, launched a national organizing drive of some 8,000 workers in Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in Las Vegas in October 2000. So far none of the Las Vegas stores have been unionized.
The NLRB said there are 30 complaints it has filed that are pending before administrative law judges on behalf of Wal-Mart workers and the UFCW nationwide. These complaints are in various stages of being heard or preparing for a hearing or settlement. Another seven cases that NLRB judges have ruled on have been appealed to the board in Washington D.C.
The union said Wal-Mart violated federal labor laws in Las Vegas when it allegedly denied workers the use of its break room as a "safe haven" for union activities and disciplined several workers including Hammond, a former Wal-Mart greeter at the Rainbow store, allegedly for distributing union handbills entitled "Wal-Mart Layoffs Approaching 'Critical Mass' for Over-Worked Workers."
Wal-Mart manager Chuck Salby, who was accused of tearing up a handbill that Hammond had handed him and telling Hammond he was unworthy of working for Wal-Mart if he believed in the union's literature, denied the allegations.
But Metz ruled in favor of the union, saying he found Hammond to be the "more persuasive and accurate witness as to what occurred on this occasion."
"I find that Salby did tell Hammond that if he believed the union's press release, he was not worthy of working for (Wal-Mart.) I find that such a comment, particularly coming from a high management official, did have a tendency to interfere with, restrain and coerce an employee in the exercise of his protected rights under the (NLRB) Act," Metz said in the ruling.
Metz also ruled that Wal-Mart violated federal labor laws when a company pharmacist, Dick Andersen, refused to hire Griego for a pharmacy cashier position because of her union sympathies.
Metz, who said the record shows Griego was very experienced at the pharmacy cashier position, said he found Andersen's demeanor, especially when he denied -- during his testimony -- knowing of Griego's pro-union activities, was not persuasive.
"I find that he did possess such knowledge when he made the selection for the pharmacy job. Griego was clearly the best-qualified applicant based on her lengthy experience in the job and having completed the computer training applicable to the position," Metz wrote. "I have discredited that testimony and I find that Andersen was concerned about Griego's union activities and his denial of the pharmacy clerk job to her was based on that concern."
But Metz denied the government's allegations that Wal-Mart caused a health care provider of Sorensen, a photo lab technician at the Rainbow store, to refuse to grant her a full medical release to stop her from returning to work.
The government argued Wal-Mart seized on Sorensen's medical complaint to rid itself of a union supporter by forcing her into a leave of absence and placing "disparate conditions" on her return to work.
But Metz said he found Wal-Mart has proven that it treated Sorensen's non-work injury consistent with its policies and that it would have placed her on medical leave of absence with conditions for her return to work regardless of her union activities.
Metz also denied the government's allegations that "the increased presence" of Wal-Mart managers surveying union activity in the break rooms at the three stores began only after the UFCW stepped up its organizing drive in Las Vegas.
"The managers regularly used the break room (at the Tropicana store) on a daily basis both before and during the period when the alleged unlawful surveillance occurred. The managers credibly denied that they were ever instructed to observe Griego in the break room," Metz wrote.
"I find that the limited number of times that the government's witnesses sighted a manager in the break room (at the Rainbow store) does not establish an unusual pattern or prove that they were there to observe Hammond and Sorensen should they choose to engage in union activity in the manager's presence."
UFCW spokesman Greg Denier in Washington D.C. said the Las Vegas ruling is significant in that it "represents one of the first times, where on such a broadscale basis, Wal-Mart has been forced to obey the law."
"It is unpredecented in that the decision affects workers in more than one store," he said. "It's a tremendous victory for workers against Wal-Mart management that had engaged in a program of systematically violating federal labor laws. Wal-Mart claims that it allows workers free choice of unionization. This decision demonstrates that Wal-Mart's claims are false."
Mike Chavez, NLRB's resident officer in Las Vegas, agreed.
"The purpose of the remedy is to restore the status the employees was at before the violation, and in some cases, the union's organizing campaign," Chavez said. "We're happy that we prevailed in the case because we had sufficient evidence to establish the violations and the decision vindicates that."
"The need for extraordinary relief is often based on the severity of the conduct and whether they are recidivist. If Wal-Mart continues to engage in this conduct, we can take them to federal court and try to get sanctions against them," he said.
Wal-Mart officials could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, a trial was held Aug. 5-15 on a complaint the NLRB filed on Sept. 21, 2001, against 23 managers at three of Wal-Mart's Las Vegas-area Sam's Club stores. The case is now pending before administrative law judge Thomas Michael Patton in San Francisco.
The UFCW, which filed its first election request on Sept. 19, 2001, for Wal-Mart's 230-worker Sam's Club store at 7175 W. Spring Mountain Road, said a vote in November was postponed after the union brought unfair labor charges against Sam's Club in November. The election hasn't been rescheduled because of a pending investigation of the new charges.
The UFCW accused Sam's Club of polluting "the laboratory conditions" or conditions that enable a free and fair election to take place when it allegedly hired numerous workers to dilute the "union supporters' majority status" and solicited from workers letters requesting the union to withdraw its election petition.
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