MADISON COUNTY, Alabama — We reported last week that workers at the Aerojet Rocketdyne facility here in Huntsville were gearing up for a union election, with supporters hopeful that they would secure a victory and organize with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). However, they were met with an unpleasant shock when last week’s election yielded unfavorable results: 80 workers voted against unionization, while only 29 voted in favor.
To ensure that every worker could let their voice be heard, they were given multiple opportunities and plenty of time to make their way to the employer’s conference room and cast their votes, after which the votes were counted and the final results announced, all within the same day.
On Saturday’s broadcast of The Valley Labor Report, host Jacob Morrison discussed the unfortunate election results and gave some background to the whole situation.
“This is the second time that workers have tried to unionize at Aerojet Rocketdyne here in the last year or two,” he said. “Longtime listeners… and very observant listeners of the show will remember us making note of that during ‘Last Week in Southern Labor,’ that Aerojet Rocketdyne employees had filed a petition for union election, sometime last year. That election ended up getting pulled because of a lack of support among the bargaining unit, and so they re-filed.”
This initial attempt at an election ended up not materializing due to lack of support, but this didn’t quench the motivation of some of the workers to continue pushing for unionization. A short while later, pro-union workers gauged that support had risen beyond the 50% needed, so they re-filed for another election. However, according to insiders, there was unfortunately a miscommunication or misunderstanding of the overall size of the workplace unit and how many voting workers there were, but after the bargaining unit momentarily considered pulling the election once again, supporters were eager to push ahead regardless and persuaded the Union to follow through with the election.
“Everybody that I’ve talked to, from worker to organizer to International representative, said that, in particular, really the biggest thing was management’s assertions that a contract would take years to acquire,” said Jacob, examining the factors that played into the loss. “And not only that, but that during the process of negotiations, Aerojet [claimed it] would be unable to — ‘by law’ — give out any raises… And that did a lot of damage to the campaign, according to workers and the union. And that’s understandable… if you believe [Aerojet’s claims]!”
While of course it is true that contract negotiations and ratifications have the potential to take long periods of time — though in those situations really the only reason it would take a long time would be because of the employer intentionally dragging it out — there is absolutely zero truth to Aerojet Rocketdyne’s claim to workers during the union campaign that, “legally,” they cannot continue or give scheduled raises or bonuses during the bargaining process.
“What is actually true is that the company must maintain status quo,” said Jacob. “And so ‘status quo’ does not mean ‘static,’ that nothing can change, or that nothing can progress as previously scheduled. It means that the working conditions must be the same as you would have expected but for the union campaign and contract negotiations.”
This means that regular bonuses and scheduled raises would not be impeded by bargaining processes, and instead would continue as normal; in fact, according to the National Labor Relations Board, it is illegal to withhold those things during contract negotiations, as it would technically count as a retaliatory action by the employer against workers exercising their rights, which is against the law.
This unfortunately only makes this election loss sting more, considering that this was the primary tactic the employer utilized to dissuade workers from unionizing… and it was a bald-faced lie; not to mention it’s a painful example of why not knowing your rights as a worker and not having an adequate understanding of national labor laws can be absolutely detrimental.
For a full discussion on the election loss and a breakdown of the major factors involved, watch the full video on YouTube: