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PAPER MILL WORKERS VOTE OUT USW REPS

Date: March 14, 2008
By: Duncan Adams / Roanoke Times

By a mere 14 votes, the upstart Covington Paperworkers Union has apparently won the right to represent about 972 union members at the MeadWestvaco paper mill in Covington.

On the losing end of Wednesday's vote was United Steelworkers International.

The National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting Wednesday inside the mill, will take about a week to certify the results.

USW officials said they are not yet ready to concede defeat.

If certified, CPU Local 675 will have defeated efforts by United Steelworkers International, which claims 850,000 members, to continue as the Covington members' bargaining representative.

The vote count of Wednesday's secret ballot election was 465 votes for CPU and 451 votes for USW. Three people voted "neither."

"Obviously, we are very disappointed," said Luis Mendoza, a staff representative for USW International.

In turn, Roy Hall, president of CPU Local 675 and former president of USW Local 8-675 in Covington, said the new local is pleased by the vote and eager to move forward with contract negotiations with MeadWestvaco.

"The vote was a little closer than we anticipated," Hall said. "Nevertheless, eventually it did go in favor of the CPU, which we expected."

The union members' earlier contract with MeadWestvaco expired in December 2006, and negotiations since then have failed to produce an agreement acceptable to both sides.

Contentious issues have included health care coverage, pension contributions, wages and company proposals to make boundaries between maintenance trades more porous.

Union members have continued working under the terms of the expired contract.

Becky Johnson, a spokeswoman for MeadWestvaco in Covington, said Thursday that the company will wait until the labor board certifies the vote before it formally declares its intent to negotiate with CPU. She said it is premature to speculate about when negotiations might resume.

Mendoza said USW has concerns about how the election campaign unfolded in recent months. He would not cite specifics.

"There have been some accusations of misconduct that we are going to look into and definitely need to investigate," Mendoza said.

Hall and other officers and members from USW Local 8-675 broke away from the Steelworkers union in October to found CPU Local 675. They claimed that USW International negotiators had not adequately represented the Covington workers during contract talks with MeadWestvaco.

On Thursday, Hall scoffed at Mendoza's suggestion that CPU might have strayed from appropriate campaigning.

"I don't think there's any validity to any claims that anything was done improperly," he said.

Hall said CPU hopes USW will "honor these vote results and let us move forward."

He said healing between the factions has begun already.

"We're seeing people who were supporters of the USW coming in today and expressing their congratulations and their intent to join us as we work together to negotiate a contract that's good for the workers and their families," Hall said.

MeadWestvaco is the largest taxpayer and employer for the city of Covington and Alleghany County. It employs about 1,400 people.
 

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