Unions Find Wall High Around Northwest Arkansas

The Cate Brothers brought national attention to Northwest Arkansas with their 1976 single “Union Man,” a pro-union song that reached the Top 10 on the rock charts. But it’s been nothing but the blues for unions trying to work their way into this area’s industries.

Bentonville’s Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s top retailer, and Springdale’s Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest poultry company, have managed to keep the unions at a distance. Tyson does have about 10,000 employees with union contracts, but that figure is still less than 15 percent of its 68,000-plus employees.

Wal-Mart has managed to keep all of its employees from being unionized despite being targeted by some organizations — such as the United Food and Commercial Workers union — as public enemy No. 1.

Other area businesses have had their brush with organized groups from the outside, but the anti-union walls around Northwest Arkansas have proved too high for them to scale.

Most businesses that were unionized have left the area, including grocery store chains Consumers and Safeway.

Sheridan Garrison, who founded American Freightways Corp. in Harrison, said he was forced to sell the longtime family owned Garrison Motor Freight in 1979 because a contract with the Teamsters union limited his company.

“I could see deregulation coming,” said Garrison, who sold the public American Freightways to FedEx Corp. of Memphis last year. “We were just pricing ourselves out of business.”

Arkansas Western Gas Co. was a much smaller business three decades ago when its service and maintenance employees became unionized. In April, 1972, the two sides reached an impasse in negotiations and the union decided to strike.

“A lot of guys took off their white shirts and put on blue ones and took care of what needed to be done,” said Tom Sager, who is still with the company today. “That got us past the union deal.”

The union signed an agreement with Arkansas Western Gas in November of 1973, and just over a year later the union became decertified with the company.

“I frankly have no use for [unions],” Sager said. “If I can’t talk to management myself, I damn sure don’t need someone else to. And back then you could have walked in and spoken with anyone. Someone came in and sold these guys a bill of goods then took their money and ran.”

Sager said their were some justified complaints by employees, but that if the complaints had been brought to the table without the union’s involvement, the matter would have resolved itself.

“I had some friends that went out [on strike],” Sager said. “But I didn’t have any animosity. A lot of good people got replaced. There were some that came back afterwards and were still excellent employees.

“But no one won. Everybody was a loser. It’s just like a divorce.”

Some local U.S. Postal workers are union members. And Franklin Electric Inc. in Siloam Springs has some unionized workers in its plant.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the nation’s largest private sector union with 1.4 million members.

“We get contacts from workers at a variety of industries all time,” said Jill Cashen, a spokesperson with UFCW. “It speaks to the fact that workers around the country are seeking a voice at work. Certainly, Wal-Mart workers are among the most common [callers]. We also represent just over 10,000 of Tyson’s processing plant workers.”

Cashen said the most common complaints about Tyson from callers concern low wages, tough working conditions and not being treated with respect.

“The core [unionized] industries are retail, supermarket, meatpacking and poultry,” Cashen said. “We have about 800,000 from retail, 250,000 in meatpacking and poultry. You can understand those are our main areas. The key is lifting raises and benefits and continue to organize in those industries. When you have a union at work you’re gonna have a better work place than those without.”

Cashen’s claims are supported by Aisha Qaasim, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“Poultry corporations employ some of our nation’s most vulnerable workers, including immigrant workers. They have traditionally been hired by industries with the worst record of compliance with labor laws and are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

“We urge the Department of Labor to pursue strict enforcement of our wage and hour laws to assure that the poultry industry is held accountable for past violations and that workers receive the back wages that were unlawfully denied.”

Tyson spokesman Ed Nicholson said such comments are simply unfounded.

“As a general rule we pay non-union members as good or, in some cases, better than union members,” Nicholson said. “[Non-union members] have more flexibility with what we can offer. And the health plan is better. There’s really no real differences except the union members are paying union dues.

“The tactics [UFCW] has used are unfair. They are attempting to take isolated incidents and make them appear like systemic problems. It’s a very common tactic they use. As a result of that, there aren’t a lot of good feelings about the union. They have attempted to portray our industry as being oppressive to our people. “

Union membership dues vary from plant to plant.

Most of Tyson’s union members are at plants acquired through the Hudson Foods and Holly Farms acquisitions.

One of Tyson’s most unionized facility is in Noel, Mo., a former Hudson plant. There, 91 percent of the workers are union members. In Arkansas, the Hope plant has 52 percent union members. Pine Bluff is also at about 52 percent and Dardanelle at about 24 percent.

The University of Arkansas Physical Plant was a target for the union within the last decade, but that potential faded when UA Chancellor John White rescinded plans for layoffs at the plant.

Unionized employees must follow strict rules. A former Consumers’ shopper recalled a spill at a checkout stand years ago. When the checker began to wipe up the spill, a manager rushed over to inform the checker that was not part of his job description and that the spill had to be cleaned by someone who in fact had that listed in their job description.

Northwest Arkansas companies appear to be winning the constant battle to keep unions out of their facilities.

The opinion locally seems to be one-sided. One Superior Industries official, when asked if his company was unionized, said, “We’re not, and we’re happy with that.”