By Marcy Rein

LANCASTER, Calif.—Nacho Meza walked in to his job at the Rite Aid distribution center in Lancaster June 8 to cheers and hugs from his co-workers. He had been out of work since Rite Aid fired him Jan. 30 for helping organize his co-workers to join ILWU warehouse Local 26. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered the company to re-hire him and another union supporter, Debbie Fontaine.

The Board had been ready to take Rite Aid to trial on 49 labor law violations. The company chose to settle rather than face an NLRB judge. It re-hired Meza and Fontaine as part of the settlement—and their return gave the organizing a new surge of energy.

On his first days off after being re-hired, Meza flew to Washington D.C. with ILWU Organizer Carlos Cordon to speak at a June 19 rally for the Employee Free Choice Act. Their presence broadcast Rite Aid’s lawbreaking far and wide.

“Tired of the company’s injustices, my co-workers and I decided to form a union,” Meza said at the rally. “Instead of respecting our decision, the company did everything in its power to obstruct our efforts.”

Just four days later, staff and volunteers from several unions traveled to Lancaster to help the Rite Aid Organizing Committee spread the good news to all their co-workers. Organizers and activists from the Teamsters joined members of the Machinists, IBEW, UFCW and ILWU Locals 30 and 26 for the June 23-24 mobilization. Most of the ILWU International organizing staff came down, as did ILWU International Vice President Joe Radisich.
“It was very positive to see all the different unions working together, and we really appreciated their efforts,” Radisich said.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and Los Angeles/Orange County Organizing Committee (LAOCOC) also helped build the event. (The LAOCOC brings together members of several unions to support organizing in Southern California.)

“Our objective is to build the whole labor movement,” LAOCOC co-chair and IBT Western States Organizing Coordinator Manuel Valenzuela told the group as they got ready to go out Saturday morning. “Your winning here will open doors in many ways.”

Teams fanned out all over the Antelope Valley to try to chat with Rite Aid workers at home, away from the hurry, worry and anti-union elements in the warehouse.

They popped in and out of cars in 100º heat and wind that made you feel you were stepping into a hairdryer. They got lost and dodged big dogs.

“Only one person slammed the door in our faces,” said Radisich, who teamed with committee member Christine Martinez. “One guy answered on behalf of his wife and said she wasn’t interested. One person talked with us, and I think she moved a bit. That was encouraging. And we have a good committed core of people there.”

In many of their conversations, volunteers heard the issues that moved people to start organizing more than a year before.

They heard about the heat. The high-desert warehouse lacks air conditioning in the areas where most people work. People sweat, faint, vomit and suffer weakness, dizziness and cramps from the heat.
They heard about safety. One young woman got caught between two forklifts just the week before. The accident happened on her 22nd birthday. It cost her a leg.

They heard about mandatory overtime piled on 10-hour shifts, and the constant stress of working “at-will.”

“You never know if it’s your last day or not,” committee member Angel Warner said. “Every time I hear a manager call me on the intercom, I get this sick pit in my stomach, and I wonder if this is it for me.”

The house-calling teams also heard the effects of Rite Aid’s anti-union campaign.

“People are still afraid,” committee member Debbie Kaliff said. Rite Aid sowed and fed that fear for months.

Managers spied on union activities and interrogated people about their feelings for the union. They threatened that people would lose their regular annual raise if the union came in, referred to union supporters as “union pushers” and painted them as thieves, thugs and vandals.

 Managers also disciplined several union supporters, fired Debbie Fontaine for “causing controversy” and fired Meza for “intimidating” a supervisor—a man a foot taller and almost 100 pounds heavier than he.

U.S. labor law forbids such firings, discipline, threats, spying and interrogation, but does little to discourage them. In this case, the NLRB investigated Rite Aid for months and found enough evidence to take the company to trial on 49 labor law violations.

But the Board routinely offers employers the option of settling without a trial. Rite Aid jumped at the chance. The ILWU had no say in the final terms of the settlement. It had input, but in the end only the Board and Rite Aid had to agree on the deal. The union wrote to the Board, calling it out for not doing everything it could to undo the effects of Rite Aid’s intimidation and misinformation.

 “Rite Aid has ridden roughshod over employees’ rights to organize,” the letter read in part. “We are disappointed that Region 31 chose not to pursue the full extent of your remedial power.”

The settlement requires Rite Aid to pay about $40,000 in back pay plus interest to Meza, Fontaine, and three other union supporters it suspended or demoted—but the company doesn’t have to pay other penalties. The settlement also says that Rite Aid has to post a notice around the warehouse promising not to engage in the kinds of illegal threats and harassment for which the NLRB wanted to take it to trial—but the company doesn’t have to admit any wrongdoing. 

Rite Aid didn’t even have to mail the notice to the workers, though it did mail a letter to everyone giving its spin on the settlement. The letter runs the same rap employers all over the country use to counter support for the Employee Free Choice Act. After doing everything they can to poison the atmosphere so workers cannot make a free choice, they wave the flag of democracy.

Going house to house, armed with copies of the settlement posting and the news of Meza and Fontaine’s return, the committee members pointed out the hypocrisy in Rite Aid’s stance and reminded their co-workers of their rights.

When the teams returned Saturday evening, the blitzers went round the table giving their impressions of the day. As Meza stood up, his co-workers clapped and cheered loud and long.

“I’m so moved by all the cariño, all the caring from people here,” Meza said. “And I’ll keep coming back, because I believe we all have rights, because I want to change Rite Aid, and because my family is here,” he said.