An NLRB-appointed arbitrator dropped the other shoe and decided in favor of Boston 600M in a dispute with Avery Dennison – giving the local two victories in recent interrelated arbitration decisions.

The background for the two arbitration victories is that the company laid off about 80 senior GCIU members on Jan. 2, 1998, and, citing lagging production that they said would be unlikely to improve, induced them to waive their three-month recall rights. Yet in the next few months and still within the recall period, the company hired temporary workers to replace them and later hired employees into a new lower-wage "general associate" job classification – without consulting with the local union.

Local 600M filed a grievance about the layoffs and the company's misrepresentation of chances for improved production and recall of the laid-off workers and a second grievance about management's unilateral decision to create the new lower-paid job category.

Union attorneys were able to show that the company was purchasing new equipment at the time it was maintaining that business was failing.

The union lawyer also submitted evidence of a continuing anti-union bias on the part of management that included supporting an unsuccessful 1997 decertification petition and another decert petition that is still pending.

An article in the March issue of the Graphic Communicator described how Arbitrator Marc D. Greenbaum ruled that Avery Dennison management had violated both the existing GCIU contract and labor law by unilaterally creating and hiring workers for the general associate job classification without bargaining with the union.

The decision ordered the company to bargain in good faith – which could torpedo the decertification attempt – and awarded back pay and promotion to the higher GCIU wage scales for the general associates.

This second arbitration victory, from Arbitrator Sharon Henderson Ellis, ruled that the permanent layoff and inducement of GCIU members to waive any recall rights was also a violation of the existing contract and federal labor law.

"This is in violation of Section 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act and contrary to the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implicit in the parties' collective bargaining agreement. Accordingly, the grievance is sustained . . . and the laid-off employees shall be made whole," said the arbitration ruling.

Arbitrator Ellis' decision directed Local 600M and Avery Dennison management to try to work out a remedy agreement, but she retained jurisdiction and the right to resolve any disputes.

This second victory should also result in a ruling to abandon the company's decertification effort. "I also anticipate that this award (like the earlier award of Arbitrator Greenbaum) requires the NLRB to dismiss the pending decertification petition," GCIU Attorney Anton Hajjar wrote in a report on the decision to GCIU Pres. James J. Norton.