BY ARLENE RUBINSTEIN
ATLANTA - On August 12-13 textile workers at the six Fieldcrest Cannon mills in the Kannapolis, North Carolina, area voted whether to join the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). The union lost by 369 votes, with 2,563 workers voting against and 2,194 in favor. The union is now challenging the eligibility of 378 voters.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution crowed the next day that the election was a "bitter setback for the textile labor movement in the South." But at Plant 1 in Kannapolis, three days after the vote, Ronald Rice, a platform truck operator with almost 25 years at the mill, stated, "I know I voted yes. I know it's the third or fourth time. So I'll just have to do it again. And I will do it again."

Gene Clark, a towel doffer with seven years at the mill agreed. "When I heard the results, I felt like someone had taken the air out of me. I thought the union had it this time for sure. So I'll wait - and then vote yes again." Clark was wearing a T-shirt distributed by the company that read: "Exercise your right to vote; No Union," but had crossed out the "No." Other workers going in and out of the plant at the 3 p.m. shift change were wearing UNITE hats.

A 1991 UNITE organizing drive at the plants lost by just 199 votes. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set the results of that election aside after ruling that the company violated federal labor laws in its antiunion campaign. The company was cited for 150 unfair labor practices in the 1991 ballot.

As part of the court-ordered remedies in the current election, the company was mandated to mail out, post, and attend readings in the plants of the NLRB order forbidding the company from repeating its 1991 violations - intimidating, harassing, and firing union supporters to name a few.

Among the long list of violations the company was sanctioned for were threatening "employees with plant closure if they select the union as their representative" and threatening "Spanish-speaking employees with deportation or imprisonment if they sign union authorization cards." The company was also mandated to hold the election off company property. UNITE was allowed to hold meetings in the plant to talk with workers about joining the union.

But as the current election approached, and as a union victory appeared likely, the company more and more flagrantly violated the NLRB order. On August 8, the company mailed a video titled "What could our future look like if the union got in?" to the over 5,000 workers employed at the mill. The antiunion "video drama" depicts UNITE organizers gloating they got a contract, while 1,800 workers are laid off.

In the last week of campaigning the labor board filed an emergency petition asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, to appoint a judge to intervene and oversee the voting to "maximize the chances for holding a fair rerun election." The labor board also asked that Fieldcrest be held in contempt of court for violating the NLRB order. UNITE is now asking the NLRB to set aside the current election.

Impact of UPS strike
The strike by 185,000 Teamsters against UPS became an issue in the election. The company seized on confusion around the strike among the workers. A company leaflet distributed on the first day of voting read in part "UNITE is already talking about promoting a strike at Fieldcrest Cannon. We would never knuckle under to strike pressure, even if we had to hire replacements, something which we would not want to do."

"The company made an issue of strikes in this election," Bruce Raynor, southern regional director and executive vice president of UNITE, told the Kannapolis Independent Tribune. "They threatened workers that if you vote for the union, you will have to go out on strike; and they used the UPS strike as an example. I am sure that in the face of what the company was saying the UPS strike had a negative impact on the outcome."

Union literature printed before the Teamsters strike began, stated, "There can only be a strike if union members vote to strike. The union can't make you strike. 98% of all union contracts are settled without strikes. And once Cannon workers join the thousands of Fieldcrest workers already in the union, you'll have the strength to win what you need without a strike." The union literature closed by arguing, "Not having a union because you don't want to strike is like never going outdoors because you don't want to be hit by lightning."

On the UPS picket line in Kannapolis, Teamsters expressed disappointment in the outcome of the election. One striker, a former employee at the mill, said that Fieldcrest Cannon had belittled the Teamsters $55 a week strike benefit. He answered this argument by asking whether it was better to have $55 a week as a strike benefit while you fight, or better to have a $50 a month pension, which is what his mother got when she retired from the mill. Other strikers said several workers from the mill had stopped by the picket line to get answers from the Teamsters about their strike.

Cynthia Haynes, who works as a clerk at plant 6 and is a long-time union activist at Fieldcrest Cannon, agreed that the UPS striker was right on the money about the textile giant's pension plan. "My mother worked for 35 years in the mill," she said. "When she died in 1984 her pension was $13 a month. She used to tell me `I buy my bread with my pension money.'"

Referring to the Teamsters strike against UPS, Haynes stated, "I admire them. I'm with them 100 percent. Every time I go by the picket line I blow my horn. The company used the strike to hurt the people here who know the least about unions. Maybe the union could have explained what the strike is all about better."

Haynes is determined to win a union at Fieldcrest Cannon. "Well, we lost a battle this time, but not the war," she said. "We're going to win the war sometime."

Arlene Rubinstein is a member of UNITE in Atlanta.
 
 
 
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