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Lopsided Vote at Vallourec Surprises Union Activists
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Christopher Gallagher parked his white SUV just outside the gates of Vallourec Star's multi stand mill Thursday morning, jumped out, and began collecting the "Vote No" signs he pounded into the frigid ground more than a week ago.
The placards -- which the shift maintenance employee paid for himself and placed around the perimeter of the plant -- urged fellow Vallourec workers to vote against joining the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America.
"We're treated very well here," Gallagher said, just minutes after it was announced that Vallourec's hourly workers had soundly rejected union representation by a 367 to 148 vote, more than a two-to-one margin. "The company steps up to the plate every time and makes sure we are an integrated part of what goes on here."
Gallagher calls Vallourec a "great company to work for," and felt it was incumbent upon him to help discourage union membership.
Out of 529 eligible voters, 520 cast ballots Jan. 21st, 22nd and 23rd to decide whether the UE should represent hourly workers at the older multi-stand mill and Vallourec's new, $1 billion fine quality mill. Voting ended at 8 a.m. Thursday and five of the ballots were contested.
Representatives of the National Labor Relations Board supervised the vote.
"We did not expect this," says Bill Allen, an 18-year employee of the multi-stand mill who was instrumental in the UE's campaign to reorganize the plant as a union shop. "We had crunched the numbers, we figured if by chance we did lose, that it would be minimal -- 10 or 15 votes."
Allen says this was the fourth campaign he's been a part of over the last 18 years to unionize the plant -- all of which failed -- even when it was still owned by North Star Steel. He expressed "shock and surprise" at the lopsided outcome this time.
After Youngstown Sheet & Tube closed its Brier Hill operations here in the late 1970s, the older plant was taken over by a series of non-union operations, including Hunt Steel and North Star Steel. Vallourec purchased North Star's operations in 2002.
Vallourec, based near Paris, France, manufactures oil country tubular goods, or OCTG, pipe for mostly the oil and gas market. It has more than 20,000 employees worldwide and employs a 820 at its Youngstown operations.
Vallourec is contemplating an investment of $81.5 million to construct a threading operation at the Ohio Works Business Park in Youngstown, which would create another 84 jobs.
"The company ran an aggressive campaign, and their side came out on top," Allen said at UE local headquarters in Girard following the vote. Allen says Vallourec and its managers had the advantage of conducting meetings on site after shifts that dissuaded workers from unionization.
"We don't have that kind of ability," Allen says, "We were restricted inside the plant of where we could talk to them, when we could hand out leaflets."
During a news event Saturday, UE officials claimed Vallourec spent as much as $1,500 a day for a company to pitch informational meetings to employees in an effort to discourage them from voting in favor of a union.
Other factors that may have influenced the vote, Allen notes, is that the UE isn't among the more vocal and well-known unions in the Mahoning Valley compared to the United Steelworkers of America, which attempted on three occasions to represent workers at the plant.
Another reason is that the company recently brought in an influx of younger workers who don't have the experience working within organized labor, notes Chuck Lepowsky, a Vallourec worker who supported the UE drive.
"Naturally, they have a younger work force in the new mill, and a lot of them just don't have the background some of us older workers do," he says. "It is what it is. It came out in their favor and I congratulate them. We'll just have to work together."
"We gave it our best shot," Allen says. "We're still going to move forward and maybe sometime in the future, we may go again."
A statement released by Vallourec Star pledged to continue a strong working relationship with its employees.
"We at Vallourec Star are proud of our ongoing investments in our employees and the local community and will continue to provide a safe and respectful workplace where pay and benefits programs remain some of the best in the valley and surrounding areas," the company said. "Our commitment to our employees and to the local community has been, is and will continue to be our culture."
The vote ends a nearly yearlong campaign to reorganize the complex as a union shop after some workers became angry about losing Sunday premium pay in exchange for 12-hour shifts, four days on, four days off.
Others, such as Vallourec's Gallagher, saw the adjustment as the type of give and take workers and management deal with on a daily basis at other plants.
"I gave up my Sunday premiums for a nice schedule, working four days on, four days off," Gallagher says. "You give a little, you get a little. It all works out."
Gallagher agrees that it's important that employees put the issues behind them and work together. "We are divided. Apparently, there are 150 employees that are unhappy about the way things have gone, and two-thirds that are happy about how things went. So now, it's going to be a healing period."
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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