Union Election Vote Next Week at Vallourec Star
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- As many as 500 workers at Vallourec Star’s $650 million pipe mill will vote next week on whether to join the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. Voting will take place Jan. 21, 22 and 23.
A news conference is scheduled for Saturday by local representatives of the union. A delegation of Vallourec workers from France is in the Mahoning Valley this weekend to support the organizing campaign, according to a news release from the United Electrical Workers Union.
Vallourec is based in Paris, France.
Vallourec said in a statement that the company was notified Dec. 9 by the National Labor Relations Board that the UE had filed an election petition seeking to represent certain employees at the plant.
The company says it “doubts that a third party would improve the workplace for employees or the company."
Judson Wallace, president of Vallourec Star, is quoted in the statement as saying, “While we support the rights of employees to choose whether they wish to organize a union, we do not believe this would add value, foster teamwork or add to the competitiveness of the company. Vallourec Star employees enjoy competitive wage rates and positive working conditions, which they receive without a union.”
In its news release, the United Electrical Workers Union quotes Bill Allen, a mill worker and leader of the organizing committee, as saying, “Youngstown supports Vallourec, so Vallourec should support us."
Allen says workers need a union contract to make sure jobs at Vallourec "benefit workers and the surrounding community, not just the French multinational company that owns the mill." He claims that workers started organizing a union after Vallourec eliminated benefits for workers here and instituted a two-tier wage system.
Moreover, Allen says that the pay and benefit package for workers at the company’s plants in France, where workers are unionized, can be worth $5 an hour more than in Youngstown. More than 80% of Vallourec's 23,000 workers worldwide are represented by unions, according to the UE.
“We’re here to see if Vallourec is living up to its pledge to respect workers’ rights,” says Christian Pilichowski, an official with the CGT, a national union in France. In addition to Pilichowski, the French delegation includes Yohann Delbauve, a third generation Vallourec worker from Aulnoye; and Phillipe Burette, a union official who has worked in Vallourec’s pipe-making operation for more than 30 years.
The union visitors from France are calling on Vallourec to comply with a global agreement on workplace fairness that the company signed with workers' organizations in Europe. Unions abroad reportedly have complained to Vallourec management about company misconduct in Youngstown. The NLRB will hear its unfair labor practice complaints next month in Cleveland.
The union website has a landing page (CLICK HERE) dedicated to its organizing activity at Vallourec's pipe mill here. According to one of the postings, on Dec. 9 "workers marched on Vallourec management to put them on notice of our intent tohold a union election. On the same day, workers traveled tothe NLRB in Cleveland to deliver our official petition for election."
Push-back against the union organizing vote is coming from the StopUnions.com website, which posts a chat room. States the website, "The union has already started a disinformation campaign stating, “if your going to vote no, then just don’t vote”. This is WRONG, every vote counts and it takes just 50%+ 1 vote of ONLY THOSE WHO VOTED to decide whether you start paying union dues or not. If 50 people vote and 26 of them voted for the union, ALL of you will pay union dues."
The French labor union, CGT, whose members will attend Saturday's news conference, is embroiled in what described as "bitter dispute between Goodyear and workers at the Akron company tire plant in Amiens, France." Just yesterday a federal judge in Cleveland dismissed the union's class action complaint against Goodyear (READ STORY).
Earlier this month, two managers at the Amiens plant were forcibly detained for two days by CGT union members.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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