Greensboro Contract PART II: The Building Blocks of Leverage
WAR STORIES By Phil Cohen
Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of Phil’s latest three-part, first-person saga chronicling an intriguing organizing campaign that took place in Greensboro, North Carolina in the late 1990s.
I distributed a leaflet scheduling a union meeting for November 11, at 5:30pm. Beneath the headline it read:
“Despite Starlite’s games, lies, and efforts to confuse workers, the union remains! Starlite is making the same mistake as every sleazy union busting company. They are underestimating their workers. They underestimate our common sense. They underestimate our courage. They underestimate our determination.”
Most of the Union members showed up despite having worked a 10-hour day. By adjournment, I had enough evidence and witnesses to file charges the next day with the National Labor Relations Board alleging thirty-one violations in several areas including:
Numerous counts of intimidating, coercing and threatening to discharge workers for engaging in lawful union activity
Disparate enforcement of plant rules favoring nonunion employees
Ongoing unilateral changes that impacted earnings and plant policies. (Once a union local has been certified, the employer is legally bound by the status quo regarding all terms of employment pending the outcome of negotiations.)
Management telling employees that bargaining would be futile and the union would be voted out
I announced the charges in a leaflet and initiated the union’s public campaign of portraying Starlite as an outlaw company by filing a press release that was covered by local newspapers and television stations. A high ranking NLRB official was quoted as saying, “The union’s allegations will be given the highest priority,”
On the morning of November 16, I entered the Holiday Inn conference room flanked by the committee just as management arrived. “We’ve reviewed your list of alleged ULPs submitted to the Board,” said Lester once we were all seated. Don’t you think it’s a bit early in the game for this? Mr. Pasquale wants a contract. He’s just tough bargaining.”
“So are we,” I replied.
One of a union’s primary obstacles when negotiating with a hostile employer is avoiding impasse. If a company can demonstrate to the NLRB that the parties occupy entrenched positions making further deliberation futile (similar to a hung jury) it can unilaterally implement its final proposal. The best way to avoid this is burying them in burdensome information requests. Lengthy responses beget fertile ground for ongoing discussion, necessary for the union to evaluate its bargaining position. Unanswered questions nullify claims of a stalemate.
I presented an interrogatory to management, focusing on records pertaining to health and safety, attendance, and economics. The parties then spent the next seven hours quibbling over insignificant discrepancies in the introductory contract language.
Fifteen NLRB witnesses joined me for a final prep meeting at the union hall on the evening of Friday, December 4. I reminded them that all affidavits would be confidential and they were about to testify before the United States government, which didn’t tolerate retaliation against its witnesses.
Initial interviews with witnesses are often emotional and disjointed, with legally insignificant material mixed in with the good stuff, absent chronological order. I therefore type my handwritten notes into coherent form, eliminating unnecessary remarks and chronologically organizing the rest. It helps workers stay focused on what’s important. I also send advance copies to Board agents, ensuring that all critical aspects of the case will be covered and allowing the union to control spin from the outset. I handed each witness their typed notes.
The Board had five agents available to take our statements in Winston-Salem on December 7, and 8. I’d previously worked closely with three of them and their supervising attorney on major cases, giving me a leg-up when it came to credibility. Folks were divided into two groups with the suggestion to call in sick when their day came.
“I’ve got a deal to offer you,” I told them. “If every one of you can show up stone sober at the Board and give a clearheaded affidavit, I’ll take you all out to dinner at the restaurant of your choice. Bring your wife. Bring your girlfriend. Bring both. Your kids are welcome. We’ll celebrate taking our fight to the next level.”
I was pleasantly surprised and impressed the following week as carloads of non-intoxicated witnesses accompanied me to Winston-Salem and provided lucid, in-depth affidavits. Agents anticipated a four-month investigation process.
I also filed an OSHA complaint, alleging workers were forced to handle unsanitary mattresses without protective equipment, and identifying ergonomic hazards at the plant. The stage was now set and I scheduled a press conference at the union hall for December 15, at 5:30 pm, to be accompanied by the NLRB witnesses. Afterward, I planned to take them and their guests to Outback for dinner.
The union’s Corporate Affairs Director Mike Zucker and his assistant Katie Shaller became involved to mount a customer campaign and take the news coverage national. During our first meeting I explained the primary strategy: We would sully Serta’s wholesome advertising profile with images of urine-soaked mattresses. While the refurbished bedding was never publicly sold at retailers, mattress customers would see Serta on one side of the aisle and Sealy on the other. With our highly publicized and repulsive descriptions in back of their mind, patrons would instinctively be drawn to the competition without consciously analyzing why. Behind the scenes, Serta and retailers would start pressuring Starlite management to settle the labor dispute. It all comes down to turning the tables: workers holding employers accountable to those they fear, instead of the other way around.
I wrote Lester Gibbons informing him the company was delinquent in responding to my information request and expanded its scope by demanding Material Safety Data Sheets for all chemicals used in the plant. Several days later, I requested a detailed breakdown of each production rate currently in effect, and if changes had been made during the past three years, the same data for each variation. The union was legally entitled to this information which would require hours to assemble and a truck to deliver.
I entered the union hall on December 15, at 5pm to prepare for the press conference, dressed in a grey pinstripe suit over a black shirt and red tie. North Carolina director Willie Jamison helped me position a conference table where I’d sit facing the cameras accompanied by Heavy-D. The hard drinking, boisterous president had agreed to be the face of the local union, knowing if we didn’t succeed in getting a contract, he’d be unemployed within a few months. The fourteen other witnesses would stand in rows behind their spokesmen, providing a compelling photo-op.
Within half an hour, the space between my table and the front wall was packed with TV cameras and reporters. Charles distributed packets describing the NLRB and OSHA charges in detail. I focused my remarks on the unsanitary mattresses being refurbished and noted that a state bedding inspector had confirmed this practice. A photo of Heavy-D loading one of these mattresses on a truck was circulated. “We have to wonder who’s sleeping on this mattress tonight,” I told the press.
The best media strategy during a campaign is to have a seasoned professional present the issues and underlying message, and then humanize it with a worker spokesman offering personal experience. Heavy provided an impassioned, detailed account of loading contaminated mattresses on trucks and being ignored by management when complaining. “I’ve developed skin rashes on my hands and arms,” he declared. “I feel lucky I haven’t gotten really sick from handling these beds, yet.”
Reporters began posing questions to the workers standing behind us. “How do you feel about your job?” a TV reporter asked a worker named Joe Macklin. It was immediately apparent that Joe was fifteen sheets to the wind as he stepped forward. “What do you mean how do I feel about my job?” he angrily demanded. “How do you feel about your job!?” We were on live feed for the evening news on three stations.
There was little I could do to smooth things over while sitting before the cameras. I tried to catch director Willie Jamison’s eye to signal a need for intervention, but his back was turned to me as he stared out the window, oblivious to everything taking place.
I discreetly motioned for Joe to step back but he continued ranting, “Who the hell do you think you are, asking me about my job? What I want to know is, what about your job!?”
“Look Joe”, I finally said, looking over my shoulder, “she’s a reporter. It’s her job to ask these sorts of questions.” I quickly addressed the group. “Does anyone else have something to share?” Charles saved the day by stepping to the front and offering meaningful commentary.
Pulling into the Outback parking lot an hour later, I recognized some of the vehicles and knew my folks were already inside. Just as I reached for the door handle my car phone rang. It was a union attorney needing to discuss another situation with me. It took forty-five minutes. When I finally entered the restaurant I found the guys sitting around the bar. “We’re running up the UNITE tab,” explained Charles. “I hope that’s OK.”
“Anything for y’all tonight,” I said and suggested we move to the dining area. Including guests, thirty-two of us were seated at adjoining tables. We were suddenly swarmed by waitresses and patrons who’d just seen us on the news and were beside themselves over being joined by local celebrities.
We spent two hours enjoying the best items on the menu, in the spirit of fraternal solidarity that defines the labor movement at its best. The guys continued ordering the most expensive drinks in the house. Finally a waitress brought me the check. I opened the folder and experienced a moment of panic when I read the tab for $542. But that immediately transitioned into feeling very cool as I nonchalantly whipped out my American Express card and paid with a $100 tip. I referred to it as a “Christmas party” on my expense report.
Having gone public via the press, it was time to take our message to the street. Mike Zucker organized a demonstration to be held at Sam’s Club, Starlite’s largest customer, on Saturday, December 20. Sixty protestors comprised of workers and community activists gathered across the street from the retailer’s parking lot, which, unfortunately, was private property. Although reporters were present, it felt like an anemic effort since we couldn’t directly engage customers or store employees. For all some of them knew, we might have been objecting to foreign policy.
As I drove home that evening I should have been anticipating two weeks of uninterrupted peace and relaxation during my Christmas vacation. But Lester had cancelled negotiations earlier in the month stating his only availability was on December 22. To make things worse, I awoke the next morning with a severe case of the flu, accompanied by a high fever. I considered rescheduling but in a campaign, timing and momentum are everything.
I dragged myself out of bed on Monday still feverish with a raw throat and aching head, wondering if I could even function at the bargaining table. I drank coffee, donned a sports jacket and khakis covering black cowboy boots and began the ninety minute drive to Greensboro. My head was spinning and I drove slowly in the right lane like drivers I usually held in contempt. But as soon as I stood up in the hotel parking lot, I was inundated by an adrenalin rush and knew I’d be OK.
Starlite Vice-President Dominic Pasquale made the employer’s opening remarks. He was outraged by our press conference and especially the lurid descriptions of contaminated mattresses. “You’ve crossed the line here! You know damn well none of this is true. We’d never force our valued employees to handle unsanitary materials! I expect to see a retraction in the News & Record tomorrow.”
“I’ll be glad to issue a retraction if I look up in the sky and see pigs flying. Look, you know the expression where there’s smoke there’s fire. During my first meeting with your valued employees, when I asked about workplace issues, the first thing that came up was refurbishing and loading mattresses stained with bodily fluids. There were so many emotional people talking at once I couldn’t hear myself think. Folks don’t make up shit like this, especially not a room full of them.”
The parties had commenced negotiations with the fairly routine understanding that contract language would be addressed prior to economics. But the union wasn’t prepared to wait indefinitely on discussions that were deliberately going nowhere before discussing money…and the timing was perfect.
Starlite had a longstanding practice of giving a twenty-five-cent bump to piece rates and a thirty-cent raise to hourly workers on January 1. While this didn’t meet our expectations, we demanded the practice be honored while the final amount was being negotiated.
“It’s not our intent to give any increases at this time,” responded Lester. “Naturally, we will bargain in good faith over economics at the appropriate time.”
“Then you oblige me to amend the Board charges, alleging another significant unilateral change.”
Dominic whispered in his lawyer’s ear and the employer’s position remained firm. The rest of the session was spent having in-depth discussions about overtime and attendance policies that yielded no agreements.
The next day, Dominic distributed a letter to employees announcing a January 4 raise comparable with previous years. It must have seemed a better option than having workers read about his illegal refusal in the papers. I prepared a leaflet letting folks know who to thank.
Upon returning home I crashed hard and spent the holidays recovering from the flu and contemplating the union’s tactics. I received my expense check from the International’s New York office along with a note saying the $642 dinner receipt (equivalent to twice that in today’s economy) had been rejected because “We don’t reimburse for Christmas parties.” I called Organizing Director Ernest Bennett who promised to straighten things out.