Indianapolis 17M won a decertification vote among 69 workers at a Weyerhaeuser business forms plant during a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election in March.

It was the second election held on the issue. The decertification petition attempt began in 1996 when the plant was owned by Willamette Industries. Willamette lost its decert attack on Lancaster 138B but the 1997 election vote in Indianapolis was tied.

GCIU Organizer Mike Huggins, past president of Local 17M, said the union filed objections to the election based on the company's promise of a 401(k) plan if the union was decertified and for its refusal to bargain. The NLRB eventually dismissed the 401(k) charge but Huggins said the union won at every turn up to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in May 2001. That court turned the case back to the full NLRB in Washington, and that's where it stayed until November 2002.

Willamette merged with Weyerhaeuser in 2002. Century-old Weyerhaeuser owns timber, paper, pulp, packaging, printing, building materials, recycling, transportation, and real estate operations in the United States, Canada, Asia, and Latin America with about $19 billion in sales.

Local 17M Pres. Garry D. Foreman met with Weyerhaeuser officials and urged them to cooperate with an election and sign a neutrality agreement. When the company balked at that, Foreman said, he got employees to sign a petition which he delivered to the NLRB.

The NLRB election process included the agreement for labor union principles that was developed and signed in 1996 by the GCIU and Weyerhaeuser's president and chief executive officer. That agreement stressed cooperation between the company and the GCIU, joint problem-solving, and working to "build relationships based upon trust, honesty, openness, and mutual respect."

GCIU Organizer Rick Putman, who ran the campaign, said the in-plant committee "was great. I can't give enough credit to the committee and their fellow workers that's what won the campaign. They did a great job with a little bit of guidance. They took it to a win."

Putman said the group developed a pro-GCIU brochure featuring photographs of workers in the plants and their reasons for supporting the union, and also a video to give to plant employees.

Also helping with the campaign were Huggins, Foreman, and Organizing Department intern Jonathan Davis of Lancaster 138B.

"People are glad it's over," Huggins said. "Now they want to bargain a contract – something they haven't had the chance to do in six years."