Organizing Updates

The challenge of organizing new workers into unions is not that the workers themselves are not interested in gaining union representation. Over the past six months, more than 100 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize. The first Amazon warehouse voted “union, yes!”. Area Director for Organizing Jesse Juarez reports that he hears from techs at car dealerships on a weekly basis who want to be in a union.

No, the challenge is that employers do everything they can to delay votes,muck up who should be in the bargaining unit, intimidate workers from voting for the union, and appeal rulings of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Most importantly, once the workers have stood up to all of that and voted for the union, employers refuse to honor the wishes of their employees to bargain in good faith.

Labor Board issues complaint at Lexus of San Diego

After organizing the techs at Lexus of San Diego (a Penske dealership) in 2020, the company started playing hardball, refusing to bargain a first contract. “We filed 25 charges against the dealership with the Labor Board,” says Jesse Juarez. “After a year of bad faith negotiations and lots of bribes to get the workers to oppose the union, the company was able to engineer a decertification election in 2022.”

That was the bad news. The good news is that in May, the Labor Board notified the union that they found merit in several of the charges and they issued a complaint.

“The key charge was bribery. The company engaged in a lot of unlawful shenanigans—stacking the unit and pitting workers against workers. They were also giving new hires higher wage rates.”

Juarez explains that the normal procedure in this case is to give the employer a period of time to comply by getting back to the bargaining table. “If they don’t go back to table, the Labor Board will enforce the order by making them go to a hearing/trial. They can appeal it but it’s just going to take more time. Ultimately, we expect them to issue a bargaining order,” he adds.

There are currently 28 employees at the Lexus dealership, many new faces since the original election. “The company harrassed and fired a lot of people, particularly those who supported the union.” Juarez adds that he doesn’t know if the new people want a union, “but I do know that a lot of them got 76% wage increases—about $16/hour—because of the union.

In the interim, the general manager who was responsible for the bribes has left. Since the employees don’t have a contract and nothing is in writing, those higher rates are subject to change. “We will be meeting with the employees to find out where they’re at but I know that the Labor Board is on our side with this one,” Juarez says.