4-Year Battle Over Validity of Union Election Shifts to Courts

In August, 1984, production workers at Superior Industries International’s Van Nuys plant agreed to unionize, voting to let United Auto Workers Local 645 bargain for them in contract talks with Superior.

Four years later, the two sides have yet to negotiate and instead are continuing a bitter fight over the election’s validity. Superior, a major producer of aluminum wheel rims for the auto industry, continues to challenge the fairness of the election and of the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that certified the election in the UAW’s favor.

“Nothing’s changed,” said David S. Adelstein, an attorney for the UAW. And because the dispute is just now moving to the courts from the NLRB, “it’s entirely possible” the case could drag on for another year, he said.

Michael K. Schmier, an attorney for Superior, said “the company is interested in seeing that its employees are treated fairly,” but he declined to comment on why Superior has fought so hard to nullify the union’s victory.

Aluminum Wheel Provider

Superior is a leading provider of aluminum wheels to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and it sells such auto accessories as steering wheels and shock absorbers.

Despite its legal battles, the company has enjoyed solid growth. Last year, its profit rose 11% to $9.5 million on a 14% gain in sales to $169.5 million. In the first half of 1988, its earnings rose 24% to $6.3 million, while sales were up 16% to $98.3 million.

As a result, Superior’s stock has climbed to a 52-week high. The stock closed Friday at $18.50 a share on the American Stock Exchange.

Nonetheless, union officials continue to attack the company for its lengthy fight against the union election.

Two weeks ago, the AFL-CIO named Superior to its 1988 “dishonor roll of labor law violators.” The union organization blasted Superior for maintaining “unbearable conditions” at its plant, and complained that workers “are still at the mercy of management” despite voting for UAW representation.

Superior Chairman Louis L. Borick and Chief Financial Officer R. Jeffrey Ornstein did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the election situation.

Superior’s Van Nuys plant employs about 1,200 workers. The company has opened a plant in Fayetteville, Ark., and is building another plant in Rogers, Ark., which is scheduled to open in February.

Expanding to Meet Demand

Joseph Phillippi, an analyst with Shearson Lehman Hutton in New York, said Superior is expanding to meet increased demand for its wheels and to be closer to major auto plants, many of which are in the South. Superior also has been streamlining its Ontario, Canada, facility.

He noted that the Arkansas and Canada plants are non-union shops. Superior’s resistance to the UAW, he said, reflects “the fact they want the prerogative to set the work rules and wages and benefits on their own.”

The dispute began in 1984 when Superior’s Van Nuys work force voted 478 to 410 to embrace the UAW amid complaints by employees and union officials that workers were vastly underpaid and toiled in unnecessarily harsh working conditions, prompting the work force to turn over 2 1/2 times in five years.

In an interview last year, Borick, who started the company 41 years ago with $3,000, confirmed that temperatures inside the plant’s foundry reached 110 degrees in the summer, that workers’ lunch breaks came in four- to six-minute intervals, and that new foundry workers earned about $4.25 an hour. Union workers with similar jobs at General Motors’ Van Nuys plant start at more than $13 an hour.

But Borick said the company tried to provide “as much cooling and relief as we can” for the workers. He said the intermittent lunch breaks were necessary because Superior’s casting machines could not be shut down for extended periods, and he claimed that some Superior foundry workers earn up to $15 an hour.

Bullied Workers

After the vote four years ago, Superior asked the NLRB to invalidate the election because, among other things, union officials had bullied workers into voting for the UAW. Superior alleged that three union supporters had brandished rifles outside polling places.

In May, 1987, the NLRB ruled the election valid, dismissed all 118 objections raised by Superior and certified the UAW as the workers’ representative.

The company asked the NLRB to reconsider its decision, claiming it did not get a fair hearing because the NLRB had first supervised the election and then ruled on whether the election had been properly conducted.

That request was denied by the NLRB, which later ruled that Superior had violated the National Labor Relations Act of 1947 by refusing to bargain with the UAW. Superior continues to seek a reversal of the board’s rulings.

Now the dispute is moving into the federal courts. The UAW has taken parts of the case to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Adelstein said the NLRB’s Los Angeles office has recommended to the full board that it ask the federal courts to enforce the NLRB ruling.

Adelstein said he is frustrated not only with Superior, but also with the federal government and the NLRB for devising a process that allows so many appeals by the loser in a union election.

“It’s not hard to understand why employers do this,” he said. “This procedure for holding elections simply doesn’t work.”

Cheaper to Fight

He said it’s also cheaper for Superior to pay its attorneys to fight the election rather than accept the election results and negotiate a union contract that might call for an extra 50 cents or $1 an hour for workers.

Sidney Rosen, assistant to the regional director for the NLRB in Los Angeles, said it’s not unusual that Superior is exhausting all of its legal options in appealing the election results. What is unusual, he said, are “the lengthy objections” by Superior and the subsequent responses from the UAW, all of which have generated more than 20,000 pages of documents.

“Even if the filings are without merit, you still have to analyze, consider and rule upon” those filings, Rosen said.

Ironically, about 80% of the production people who were working at Superior’s Van Nuys plant in August, 1984 have since left the company, meaning the people the UAW would represent are workers who did not vote for the union, said Bob Flores, who leads the UAW organizing effort at Superior.

Lawyers for both sides said NLRB rules generally prevent companies from using employee turnover as a reason for seeking nullification of an election.