NONUNION ORGANIZATIONS ~

Vol. XX, No. 6 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. June 1997

News

Teamsters’ President Weakened by Accusations of Wrongdoing

Strike Data

AFL-CIO Threatens Boycott of Japanese Hotel Chain

From the Editor

A Checklist of New AFL-CIO Initiatives

Preventive Tactics

Designing ADR That Is Perceived as Fair

Campaign Workshop

Party by Union Supporters Near Polling Area Was Permissible

When Supervisors Support the Union

Union Tactics

Voluntary Recognition Agreements

AFSCME Wins Victories among Tucson Physicians

UNITE’S Tactics at Hathaway 8

A Union-Church Alliance in Action 8

Two Coca-Cola Officials Indicted for Union Election Felonies

An Atlanta grand jury has indicted the vice president and general manager, and the vice president for human resources of the Atlanta Coca- Cola Bottling Company. The two are accused of bribing an employee to assist the company in defeating a 1994 union organizing drive. If convicted on the five felony counts, the two officials could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay up to $310,000 in fines.

They allegedly gave a truck driver, Jeffrey Wright, $10,000 and pro- moted him to a job with an annual raise of $2,575 in return for his help in persuading coworkers to oppose an organizing drive by the Bakery, Confec- tionery and Tobacco Workers. Wright had previously been a union adher- ent. The union lost the election.

The money for the alleged bribe reportedly came from the personal bank account of an unnamed and unindicted coconspirator.

Wright made extensive secret audio recordings of his conversations with the Coca-Cola officials. Part qf the alleged bribe money was paid in a supermarket. After the transaction, Wright obtained a videotape of it from the supermarket manager. He filed a complaint with the NLRB and cooperated with a Justice Department investigation, providing prosecutors with the audio and video recordings.

Following the indictment, the two company officials went on leaves of absence.

AU.S. attorney emphasized that Coca-Cola Enterprises was not indicted and that the company had cooperated with the investigation. In a state- ment, Coca-Cola said it was “hopeful that these respected, long-serving managers will be vindicated of any wrongdoing.” If the charges were proved true, however, the company said that “would directly contradict our company’s labor relations philosophies, policies, and practices.”

SEW Ratchets Up Its Organizing In 1997, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will report-

edly spend 45 percent ofits budget on organizing. New president Andy Stern has obtained commitments from 100 of the 300 locals to increase their own spending on organizing to 20 percent in 1998. A goal is to have 5,000 trained rank-and-file members who also work at least some of the time as full-time organizers, whether for a day, a weekend, or a night, by the year 2000. Currently, the SEIU has no full-time member organizers.

0 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.