New York 51-23M won an organizing victory and bargained a first contract for workers in the pressroom and bindery at Color Optics, Inc. in Saddle Brook, N.J.

Color Optics, founded in the early 1980s, is an award-winning commercial and package printing company. In addition to advanced digital prepress services, the company offers printing services that range from computer-to-plate on five and six-color Komori presses to package design and converting, stamping, and embossing.

Ira Cohen, Local 51-23M secretary-treasurer, said the local got a call from a worker at Color Optics about getting union representation at the plant. During meetings at which the unit members signed union representation cards, the workers said the company kept promising them raises but never delivered on them, Cohen said. They hadn't had a raise in two years. The workers also were unhappy with their retirement future under the company's 401(k) plan.

Cohen said the company launched an anti-union campaign and "used all the tools in their arsenal to dissuade their employees from voting yes." But management "didn't count on the resolve of the men to be represented fairly."

Cohen said the local was forced to file unfair labor practice charges related to some of the company's most offensive tactics, such as lying about information in the union's LM-2 forms that are on public record.

Despite the anti-union meetings and other tactics, the local won the representation election by a 10 to one vote in October 2002.

Then it took a year of difficult negotiations to bargain a first contract, Cohen said. But it paid off. Cohen said that the three-year agreement provides wage increases and annuity contributions that are 100 percent employer-paid and increase every year during the contract period, which was retroactive to November 2002.