Union organizing strategies and workplace effects

Management

Union Organizing

Wegmans Food Markets is a privately held, family-run corporation that runs a regional supermarket chain of approximately 60, in addition to 17 Chase-Pitkin Home and Garden stores. Known for its pioneering approach to grocery retailing, Wegmans is consistently cited as one of the nation's top retailers and best places to work. Their headquarters are in Rochester, New York. It operates mainly in the central and western parts of New York. In the 1990s the chain extended into Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Wegmans was started as the Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company in 1916. It was a small food store run out of the front of the Wegman family's house in Rochester. After six years of selling groceries from their home, Walter and John Wegman relocated their enterprise to a little, full-scale grocery store featuring canned goods, produce, a bakery, and even a cafeteria (Wegmans Food Markets, 2010).

Wegmans is currently union free. Management feels that if they involve their employees in decision making and treat them properly then they won't feel that they need a union (Grossman, 2008). If the employees would ever decide that they would want to unionize there would be a process of steps that they would have to undertake. A labor union can be formed in one of two ways: employees can either choose an existing union through an election or create their own. Creating a new union is very difficult however. Most of the time employees unionize by having labor union elections. A union must be certified by the NLRB which is a federal agency. The process is as follows:

The first step involves authorization Cards. An employee must sign an authorization card in order to show his willingness to form a union. A union election requires at least 30% of the employees to sign the cards. Generating a new union requires a majority of the workers to sign the cards. Otherwise, a union cannot be formed.

The second step involves the formation of an Appropriate Bargaining Unit (ABU). If there are adequate signed authorization cards, they are sent to the NLRB for approval of a union election. The NLRB will only allow a union election if the employees are an ABU. This entails that the employees have similar demands, hold similar positions, are non-management employees, and work in a close geographical region (How to Form a Labor Union Q & a, n.d.).

The National Labor Relations Act assures the right to form unions. Eligible employees have the right to state their views on unions, to talk with their co-workers about their interest in forming a union, to wear union buttons, to attend union meetings and in many other ways to exercise their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association (How to Form a Union Where You Work, 2010). This act also allows employees to join the union without any hassle from management. It is often seen that employers routinely harass, intimidate and coerce workers who try to exercise their freedom to form a union at work. By the time they vote in NLRB elections on whether to join a union, a lot of employees have been forced to sit in captive audience meetings where employers paint a picture of unions so evil, they defy even the worst stereotype. The lengthy NLRB election procedure gives employers lots of time to harass workers. They often receive veiled threats of demotion or lousy job assignments or are badgered by supervisors who even are followed to the restroom by their supervisors. Studies have shown that 78% of private-sector employers require supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee (Why won't workers join unions, 2009).

If the employees of Wegmans would choose to form a union it would affect more than just the employees and the store, it would affect all the stakeholders. These key stakeholders would include the customers and the community along with the employees and administrators. The formation of a union most always involves a long drawn out battle between both sides which end up not being any good for the customers or the community in which the union is trying to be formed. Customers end up taking sides between the employees and the store. This may have long-term affects in that the store may end up loosing business which would not be good for the community as a whole.

Wegmans has been involved in lawsuits in regards to issues surrounding a union. In 2007, there was a complaint filed by Edwin R. Melhorn that he was unlawfully terminated by Wegmans because he engaged in concerted activity protected by the National Labors Relations Act and because it mistakenly believed that he was involved in activity in support of a union. It also alleges that Melhorn was unlawfully interrogated by supervisors concerning his union and protected concerted activities. This case was ultimately dismissed because it was not found that Melhorn did engage in any union or concerted activity protected by the Act. The evidence failed to establish that Wegmans had any knowledge that he had or that it any reason to believe that he had engaged in such activity. It also fails to establish that it had a mistaken belief that he had done so, which led it to terminate him (Decision, 2007).