Batesville Products strikers win NLRB ruling, clear path to union vote
Lawrenceburg, IN – Striking workers at Batesville Products Inc. (BPI) won a major victory through a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Region 9 on October 27. Workers at BPI have been on strike since May 11 after a supermajority signed authorization cards with Teamsters Local 135, and BPI management refused to recognize the union. The workers are now on strike alleging unfair labor practices by the company.
The union requested union recognition and then began a strike. After a month on strike, the union filed for an election at BPI through the NLRB election process. The Teamsters union seeks to represent roughly 18 machinists, polishers and shipping clerks at BPI's Lawrenceburg machine shop.
In responding to the filing, BPI management said that around 20 workers from its foundry in Aurora should be added to the vote. Those workers had no part in the union campaign, and adding them would turn the super majority of the workers who built the union into a minority in their own election. The company was unwilling to negotiate a stipulated election agreement without including the foundry workers, which forced an NLRB hearing over the matter on June 22, followed by months of waiting on a decision.
The NLRB regional director's decision dismantled the company's case. The foundry and the machine shop are indeed separate facilities with different supervisors, different jobs, and different working conditions. Casters and tooling technicians, who make up most of the Aurora workers, have no counterpart in Lawrenceburg. The company claimed that workers regularly moved between the two plants, but the decision found little evidence of it, noting the company produced no documentation to back up its witnesses.
The NLRB operates under a “single site presumption” in these types of cases, meaning the employer must show “significant interchange” with the site it intends to add, or else the single site should be awarded a vote without the extra workers included.
The regional director concluded that BPI failed to make its case and directed an election for the bargaining unit the union filed for in the first place.
The company's argument fell apart under scrutiny, yet it still bought BPI more than four months. In that time, the strikers held the line, now nearly six months into their strike, while the company waited for them to break.
In the United States, union elections are overseen by the NLRB, which frequently allows employers to throw up flimsy legal challenges and then takes months to rule on them. Even when workers win, the delay itself has done the boss' work for them and bought them months to bust the union. The BPI strikers refused to let it succeed this time, holding their picket line through tremendous adversity.
BPI management called the Lawrenceburg Police Department in to break the strike. One scab drove his car into a striker crossing the road, though police failed to gather any evidence when a police report was filed. The worker who was hit by the car pressed charges, but they were ultimately dismissed for lack of police cooperation with prosecutors.
When a belligerent anti-union goon showed up to harass strikers and flashed his gun at a strike leader, police declined to charge him. Strikers say that they are aware of ties between police and this individual who made terroristic threats against the picket line.
Lawrenceburg police also threatened strikers with arrest if they used amplified sound in any way. Strikers closely followed the city's noise ordinance for the duration of the labor dispute, which police even acknowledged, making clear that an attempt to shut down their action would be a violation of workers' First Amendment rights.
The NLRB ruling is a major win, but it is not the finish line. The election date and location have not yet been announced. After the vote comes the fight for a first contract that would address the conditions that started this organizing campaign. Those conditions include mandatory 60-hour weeks, low wages, high health insurance costs, and declining benefits.
“Today, we celebrate a massive victory,” said Teamsters Local 135 in a social media statement. “Tomorrow, we keep fighting.” The Teamsters at BPI have already proven they can outlast the company's stalling. As long as they hold the line together, they say they are well prepared to win union recognition when the vote occurs.