Macy’s Employees to Ask for 2nd Vote, Union Says

After losing their bid last weekend to gain union representation, employees from Macy’s South Coast Plaza stores will ask the National Labor Relations Board to overturn the election and call another one, the union said Monday.

The employees will claim “numerous unfair labor practices committed by management,” according to a prepared statement from United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 848 in Buena Park.

Workers reported that Macy’s threatened to fire employees for “supporting the union and campaigning at work, while giving free rein to company supporters to campaign at work,” the statement said.

The company held lengthy meetings opposing the union, then released a mailing list with bad addresses that made it impossible for the union to contact a “significant number of employees” to present the union’s side, the statement contended.

A company spokesman called the allegations “preposterous.”

They are “absolutely unfounded, baseless allegations, the voice of a sore loser,” said Joseph F. Vella, vice president of employee relations for Macy’s parent company, Federated Department Stores Inc.

The union had waged a one-year campaign to represent the approximately 800 employees at two Macy’s stores at South Coast Plaza and another at Crystal Court in Costa Mesa. During voting Friday and Saturday, 541 of the eligible employees cast ballots against union representation while 149 voted for it.

Loren Ragsdale, one of a mixed group of “observers” who monitored the election, said she believes it was fair. Ragsdale, who opposed the union, said she doubts those protesting the election have much to gain.

“The employees have decided overwhelmingly,” she said. “It was just a landslide, so I don’t think it would do much good for it to start again.”