Workers at the plant have twice fought to win union recognition. In 1999 and again a year later the union failed to receive enough votes to win representation elections.

The flyer announcing the filing of the petition also explained that "this time things are different." One difference, reflecting the greater unity among workers in the plant, is the fact that the flyer was produced in four languages--Spanish, English, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian.

Echoing this theme, Wilmer Sosa, a worker in the plant and a veteran of the previous organizing drives, explained in an interview with the Militant why union activists were confident about winning this time. "We have more support this year with all the nationalities in the plant--the Bosnians and the Polish. People have been through this process before and they know that the company will make a lot of promises that that they won’t keep."

After the election in 2000 scores of complaints were filed by the union with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), charging the company with carrying out illegal activities before and during the election.

An NLRB hearing on the charge was held earlier this year. At the end of the proceedings lawyers for Kayem announced they would appeal any ruling against the company. The judge has yet to issue a decision on the charges.

The union has charged the company with demanding employees produce their work permits and immigration papers during the pre-election period to discourage union activity and votes for the union. About two-thirds of the workers in the plant are immigrants from Latin America, mainly Central America. Another 15 percent are from Poland and Bosnia.

The union also charged that Kayem engaged in coercive surveillance of union activity, that the company required employees to attend one-on-one meetings with the bosses, and that company officials threatened to reduce benefits and/or move the plant if the union won the election.

Over the past months workers at the plant have organized to respond to different provocation’s by the company. One involved a fight for a raise that began when workers found a co-worker’s pay stub in the locker room. They did the same job as the co-worker in a different department but made 50 cents an hour less. The fight included a couple dozen workers twice getting meetings with the bosses. Although the workers who found the check did not receive a wage increase, they did win additional pay for workers on the second shift in the same department who did the same job.

When Kayem challenged a doctor’s note putting a female worker under weight lifting restrictions, 10 co-workers went with her to the personnel department to support her.

At the same time as the UFCW is involved in the organizing drive at Kayem the union is facing a decertification drive at 11 Shaw’s Supermarket stores in nearby Worcester. In February, a majority of the workers at the stores signed a petition to drop representation by the union. UFCW officials explained that employees were told if they stayed with the union, their costs for health insurance would more than double, to almost $78 a week, but if they abandoned the union, their costs would stay the same.

In April two UFCW officials were arrested at a Shaw’s Supermarket on trespassing charges. A Boston Herald news article about the arrests and the decertification of the union was copied and taped on walls and around time clocks in the Kayem plant by those opposing the organizing effort.

Ted Leonard works at the Kayem Foods plant in Chelsea, Massachusetts.  
 
 
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