Four years after a majority voted to be represented by UE, the National Labor Relations Board has gotten around to counting the ballots which on March 14 showed that, by a vote of 33 to 5, workers at Hishi Plastics had chosen UE as their bargaining representative. Justice delayed may be justice denied, but Hishi workers are seizing this belated opportunity to achieve some justice on the job with their first UE contract.
The NLRB waited so long to count the ballots because the company – a U.S. subsidiary of Mitsubishi Plastics and part of the Mitsubishi corporate empire based in Japan – had claimed at the time of the election that six group leaders were supervisors, and disputed the inclusion of five quality control workers in the production bargaining unit. The Labor Board figured that all this had something to do with the so-called “Kentucky River” cases it was considering elsewhere in the country, in an attempt to broaden the legal definition of who is a supervisor and therefore ineligible for union representation. So the Board placed the future of the Hishi workers on hold while it mulled over those other cases.
“The good news at Hishi is that workers are finally headed to the bargaining table to fix their problems," said Bob Kingsley, UE Director of Organization, who attended the first official meeting of the organizing committee at a small tavern in Lincoln Park, way back in 2003. “But no worker should have to endure a four-year wait for a chance at justice," Kingsley added. "It took the Bush Labor Board an incredible 47 months to count 40 ballots at Hishi. If you need an example of why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, this is it."
On April 22 Hishi workers met with retired Local 404 President Joe Miglino, UE International Rep. Connie Spinozzi and Field Organizer Jim Ermi, elected a bargaining committee, ratified proposals, and made preparation to begin bargaining, which was scheduled to start on May 22. Elected to the bargaining committee were Enamur Rahman, Mahkubis Rahmun, Dennis Brown and Oscar Castro.
Hishi workers first contacted UE through our website back in 2003, because their boss at the time was cracking the whip in a push to set new production records. Joe Miglino, then president of Local 404 and a worker at nearby United Tool, met with the workers and got an organizing campaign underway. “The shop is a mile and a half from where I live. So I’d go by at shift changes almost every day.” Joe organized the workers and guided them up to the NLRB election in April 2003, and then maintained contact after the Labor Board impounded the ballots. “We wanted them to demonstrate and demand that the company negotiate with us,” but without an NLRB certification workers were reluctant to do that, and preferred to wait for the legal proceedings.
After such a long wait, “I thought the case was lost in the mail” by the NLRB in Washington, Miglino recalls. But in January this year the NLRB held another hearing on the case, and Joe was present for the vote count. “It was like winning a lottery. I didn’t expect it, especially by such a margin.”
Brother Miglino, who retired from United Tool last year, thoroughly enjoys helping the Hishi workers as they work to build a union and win their first contract. “Now we have to organize the plant. The people know very little about the union. But about 50 percent of them have come to the meetings we’ve held so far. That’s a very good start.”
Joe Miglino immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1962, and was surprised in 1964 to see UE organizer Jose Lugo (now retired) handing out leaflets outside the plant at which Joe was then working. In Italy, unions are well established and, as Joe put it, have no need to “stand outside the plant to try to get in.” Joe joined in the unsuccessful effort to organize that plant into UE. Ten years later and working now at United Tool, Joe’s co-workers elected him steward in their existing union, a corrupt outfit, says Joe, “like you’d see on The Sopranos.” When Joe filed his first grievance, the boss crumpled it up and threw it in the wastebasket. “I knew we had to do something, so I called Jose Lugo,” and together they brought United Tool into UE. Over thirty years later, Joe is still building UE and workers’ justice in New Jersey.