March 30, 2011
 

Tyson plant's union status is uncertain

A vote taken last December over whether to decertify the union at Tyson Foods Inc.'s beef plant near Pasco and Wallula, Wash., continues to be untallied, with the ballots impounded in the National Labour Relations Board's Seattle regional office and likely to stay undecided for the following months.

Resolving the question of union representation at the facility awaits an NLRB decision on another case entirely, NLRB Regional Director, Richard L. Ahearn, said.

At issue is a 2007 NLRB decision regarding the agency's requirement that employers alert the NLRB when they grant voluntary recognition to a labour union. Tyson failed to notify the NLRB of such a decision regarding the Pasco/Wallula plant several years ago so an employee sued to have the union decertified at that plant.

Initially, Ahearn issued a decision that the decertification petition was filed in a timely manner and so the election proceeded.

Meanwhile, however, United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1439 challenged the notification rule itself at the NLRB's national level. An existing case now filed under Lamons Gasket Co was previously filed challenging the notification rule. The Lamons decision will be made first and in turn, will determine the outcome of the Tyson challenge.

The Lamons decision will be handed down in the next couple of months, Ahearn said. Whether the national board will uphold the notification requirement or overturn it, and whether that decision will apply retroactively to the Tyson challenge as well as to other case is anybody's guess, he said.

Tyson Foods' spokesman, Gary Mickelson, said, "Hourly workers at our Pasco beef complex were involved in a union decertification vote earlier this year, however, the outcome remains unknown. The vote count was delayed by the NLRB after the union filed some objections. It is our understanding the ballots have been impounded pending the outcome of the NLRB's review of the union's claims."

The union represents almost 1,200 of the more than 1,300 people employed at the Washington state beef complex.