Catering Firm to Pay $4.1 Million to Workers

Caterair International has agreed to pay nearly $4.1 million in back pay and interest to 235 current and former employees in the Los Angeles area to settle an unfair-labor-practices case brought by the National Labor Relations Board. The settlement is one of the agency’s biggest in recent years. The company was found by an NLRB administrative law judge in 1992 to have improperly withdrawn recognition of the workers’ union, Carson-based Teamsters Local 572, and then refused to negotiate with the labor organization. The judge also found that when the 235 workers went on strike in 1991 to protest the company’s actions, Caterair replaced them and later illegally refused to reinstate the strikers. The workers were unemployed anywhere from one week to 4 1/2 years, and the settlement was intended to compensate them for their lost pay. Caterair, which provides meals for commercial airlines, is based in Bethesda, Md., but the affected workers were employed at Los Angeles International Airport.