Teamsters Seek Bloomingdale’s Union Vote

The Teamsters union asked federal labor officials to hold an election to determine whether the union can represent about 60 workers at Bloomingdale’s Home Store at Fashion Island Newport Beach.

A company spokesman said Monday that the department store chain will fight the move, arguing that the store is part of the larger department store nearby rather than a separate location.

The petition, filed late Friday with the National Labor Relations Board, seeks to represent only the workers at Home Store. The larger department store employs about 250 people.

“We felt that we had to do something fast over there,” said Manny Valenzuela, an organizer at Teamsters Local 848 in El Monte. Bloomingdale’s “is doing everything they can to prevent us from winning. They don’t understand the law, but we’re going to teach them a lesson.”

Joe Vella, vice president of employee relations at Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores Inc., which owns Bloomingdale’s, called the petition “a typical union ploy.”

“Whenever you can’t get the minimum number of signatures from the entire work force, you try to carve out something smaller,” he said.

Bloomingdale’s contends that the two stores, which are physically separate, are operated as one unit, sharing the same management, policies and procedures, and employees. The union contends that the stores are run separately and have little interaction with each other.

An NLRB ruling in a similar case in Chicago last year would seem to favor the company. A Teamsters local attempted to organize a smaller store tied to Bloomingdale’s Michigan Avenue store last year, only to have the bid rejected by the NLRB. The union was granted an additional two weeks to gather enough signatures to qualify for an election, but it failed to do so.

Vella said he was confident that Bloomingdale’s would prevail. “In the last 25 years, we’ve had only one election that has gone union,” at a Seattle-area furniture store in 1996, he said.

Bloomingdale’s Newport Beach employees began an organizing drive in mid-December, unhappy with what they called unrealistically high sales quotas that effectively eliminate commissions, and with expensive benefits. A similar effort is underway at Federated’s Macy’s stores at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

To qualify for an election, 30% of a business’ employees must sign up. To win representation, more than 50% must vote in favor of the union. Valenzuela said 70% of the Home Store’s workers have signed up for the election, all but guaranteeing victory if the NLRB rules that the stores are operated separately.

Generally, the NLRB attempts to conduct a hearing within 10 days after a petition has been filed, and an election within 42 days, said James Small, assistant to the regional administrator in Los Angeles. However, the process could take longer if the employer challenges the election.

Meanwhile, tensions at the stores are heightening. The union, which already has filed three unfair labor-practice complaints against Bloomingdale’s, plans to file two more today on behalf of two Home Store employees who were fired last week, said Debra Goldberg, a Los Angeles attorney who represents the union.

On Saturday, the fashion store’s chief organizer--cosmetics saleswoman Mary Lou Walker--was hospitalized for stress after paramedics were called to the store to assist her.