Union in Labor Feud Asks Boycott of Lumber Firm With Foreign Ties

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has launched a boycott campaign against a Neiman-Reed’s Lumber City franchise in Van Nuys, intensifying a labor dispute at the 37-year-old San Fernando Valley lumber and appliance store.

In flyers sent to 50,000 homes in Van Nuys, Encino and Northridge, officials of union Local 770 have attacked the store for what the union calls its affiliation with a foreign-owned company with little concern for its American employees.

The mailers urge customers to “Buy American” at other lumber stores to force the franchise to improve working conditions and raise wages.

Store manager Rick Hall said the company was upset by the mailers, which he called “outlandish.” The mailers, which accuse the firm of paying substandard wages, make no mention of the union.

Union Decertification Vote

The call for the boycott came as the store’s approximately 40 employees prepare to vote Friday on whether to decertify their union. The vote was authorized in January by the National Labor Relations Board.

The store, on Burbank Boulevard, is the oldest of Neiman-Reed’s 12 stores in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It was one of two franchises unionized in the past two years by the UFCW local.

In 1980, 51% of the company was bought by United British Merchants, a multinational corporation based in Great Britain. The remaining stock is held by the company’s founders, including Bob Neiman, who opened the Burbank Boulevard store in 1948.

Hall said Neiman, an ex-Marine now visiting Iwo Jima to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the World War II battle there, was infuriated by the flyer’s suggestion that the operation is “un-American.”

No Contract

The union was certified in a December, 1983, election, but management and labor representatives have been unable to agree on a contract.

Union spokeswoman Andrea Zinder accused the company of dragging its feet in negotiations while promoting the decertification effort. The decertification vote was ordered by the NLRB after it was requested in petitions signed by at least 30% of the company’s workers.

Zinder said Local 770 had filed a complaint with the labor board charging the store with unfair labor practices and accusing management of harassing employees who favor the union.

Hall said store employees opposing the union have received death threats during the labor dispute. He said the threats were made to the store’s personnel director and to two other workers favoring decertification, but he stopped short of blaming the threats on the union.

The union’s flyers were produced by Roper Mailing Service of Garden-Grove. Owner Jack Roper said 50,000 flyers were printed.

‘Huge Profits’

The mailers accuse the British firm of enjoying “huge profits” from the Neiman-Reed’s network without providing benefits and increased wages for workers.

A note at the bottom says the flyer was produced by “a committee of concerned citizens” called Consumers Against Foreign Exploitation.

Zinder said she did not know why the union left its name off the flyers.

She described the labor dispute as “much more than a fight over wages,” but would not detail the union’s other grievances. Union officials spent Wednesday at a negotiating session, she said.