Local News in Brief : Lumber City Workers Vote to Drop Union

Employees at a Van Nuys home-improvement store have voted to decertify United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 as their collective bargaining representative, a National Labor Relations Board official said.

Employees at the Neiman-Reed’s Lumber City on Burbank Boulevard voted 25 to 6 against retaining the union, NLRB spokesman Sidney Rosen said. Six votes were not counted because of challenges by either the union or the store’s management.

The union will be formally decertified if the vote is not appealed by the close of business on March 1, Rosen said.

The management of Neiman-Reed’s and UFCW officials have been at odds since December, 1983, when the union won the right to organize the flagship store in a 12-franchise chain in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Early this month, the union began urging customers to boycott the store because it is partly owned by a British multinational company. Managers at the franchise were angered by the boycott, which they described as “outlandish.”

Store manager Rick Hall said he thought the boycott may have convinced store employees to vote against the union. Union spokeswoman Andrea Zinder disagreed with Hall, attributing the result to what she termed “high-pressure” management tactics in the days leading up to the vote.

Zinder said the union was strongly considering an appeal.