Unionists Confront Firm at Stockholders Meeting
A verbal confrontation erupted in the normally staid stockholders meeting of the nation’s leading aluminum wheel rim manufacturer Thursday when members of the United Auto Workers attempted to question company officials at the Beverly Hilton Hotel about why they had refused to recognize the union as a bargaining agent for the firm’s 1,200 employees.
The brief argument came near the end of the annual meeting of Superior Industries International Inc., a Van Nuys-based company that makes wheel rims for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and supplies auto parts to large chain stores. Earlier in the afternoon, about 350 people demonstrated outside the hotel, urging the company to sign a contract with the union and to improve wages and working conditions.
Wednesday’s demonstration was one of several that UAW Local 645 has held since it narrowly won a National Labor Relations Board-supervised representation election at the company last summer. The company has refused to negotiate with the union since then, asserting that the UAW used unfair tactics in the election.
Called a Test Case
The Superior campaign is becoming one of the most heated labor disputes in Southern California. Eric Mann, a UAW organizer, said the campaign has become a “test case” of whether a union that has won a representation election will be able to secure a contract and improve the lot of low-wage workers, many of whom are Mexican and Central American immigrants.
But George Musson, the company’s industrial relations director, said the union’s primary aim in gaining bargaining rights is that a contract at Superior would generate about $300,000 in yearly dues to the UAW.
He asserted that the UAW used “threats, bribes and coercion” in attempts to get the workers to vote for the union, contentions that the union has denied. The company filed 118 objections to the conduct of the election. The NLRB threw out all but 10 and held a hearing on those. A decision is pending, but the dispute could go on for several years because either side could appeal a labor board decision on whether the election was conducted fairly.
Musson said the company has also asked the FBI to investigate the union. “We had heard the union was stockpiling weapons in Van Nuys for shipment to Communist radicals in Central America,” Musson said. “The employees working with the union to organize Superior are from Central America and I would suspect they have Communist leanings.”
Charges Denied
Pete Beltran, president of UAW Local 645, said emphatically that the charges are “patently false.”
During the stormy election battle and afterward, Superior fired 33 workers. The UAW asserted that all of the workers were discharged because of their union activity, a charge the company denied.
However, the NLRB has filed a complaint against the company, contending that three of the workers were illegally fired. The board also has charged that the company conducted illegal interrogation of employees about union activity, threatened to fire employees for distributing union authorization cards and illegally promised employees that they would receive benefits if they did not engage in union activities. A hearing on those charges is scheduled to begin June 3.
Maximiliano Torres, one of the fired workers, said Wednesday that the company paid only $4 an hour to many workers. Union organizer Mann also charged that the company forced people to work under unreasonable conditions. “Workers in the foundry get no lunchtime or other breaks. Workers in the foundry have passed out from toxic fumes and high heat,” Mann said. Musson denied the charges about the conditions, and said the average wage at the plant is $6 an hour.
Torres, Mann and several other union members gained entrance to the shareholders meeting, having obtained proxies earlier. However, they were informed by company lawyer Marco Weiss that they would be admitted only as observers--not as participants--because they had obtained their shares too late to become stockholders of record.
The only item on the meeting’s agenda was election of company directors. After that procedure was completed in about 15 minutes, Lou Borick, president of Superior, asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. At this point, Beltran asked if he could address the meeting for five minutes. Borick said no.
Mann leaped to his feet and challenged Borick: “There were 400 people outside demonstrating. Aren’t you at all concerned?” Borick responded that the meeting was “not the place” for a discussion of the company’s labor problems.
Shareholders Leave
The meeting was adjourned by voice vote, as Mann unsuccessfully implored the 50 shareholders in the room to hear the union’s position. Weiss, the company lawyer, attempted to get Mann to stop talking by holding his hand in front of Mann’s mouth. Mann shouted, “Don’t try to muzzle me,” as the shareholders left the room.
