Rebuilding the union at Bio-Rad
Melody Resendiz has worked at Bio-Rad, a manufacturer of life science research and clinical diagnostics products, for nearly nine years. She is part of a group of workers at the company’s campus in Hercules, CA, who are leading an effort to revitalize and strengthen a bargaining unit represented by Local 6 that has worked under an open-shop contract since the 1980s.
The bargaining unit represents approximately 200 workers at the campus, but because it’s an open shop, workers are not required to join the union. Currently, only a few workers are dues-paying members of Local 6. With their current contract set to expire at the end of the year, workers are fighting to address longstanding issues. The issues the workers are currently bargaining over include raising wages to match area standards, including guaranteed wage increases, adding a union security clause, improving safety conditions, and giving workers control
over when they use their paid time off. In previous contracts, wage rates
were not included, allowing management to set wages. As a result, many
workers are struggling to make ends meet despite Bio-Rad’s nearly $3 billion in annual revenue.
“We all like working for Bio-Rad. It’s just that we feel like we’re not being valued because of our low wages,” Resendiz said. “The cost of living keeps rising, but our wages stay stuck.”
Wages at Bio-Rad are well below the area standards for similar companies. Resendiz said that wages for some workers at Bio-Rad are more comparable to those at McDonald’s than to those at other biotech companies, such as Bayer in Berkeley.
Coworkers recently nominated Resendiz for the negotiating committee. “It’s something that I really didn’t think of being a part of before,” Resendiz said. Still, she eventually agreed because she was hopeful that being part of the process to improve the contract would benefit workers. After the negotiations, Hunter and
Local 6 Secretary-Treasurer Jose Nunez came up with a plan. “We set up a
meeting with the International to see if we could get some assistance from the International Organizing Department to make a push to build worker power here and turn this into a real union shop,” said Hunter.
Hunter added that they received a surprisingly warm reception when they began the internal organizing campaign at Bio-Rad.
“When we first started, we expected people to be much more upset because the union hadn’t had a strong presence here for decades, but people have been receptive. It definitely helps that Bio-Rad’s wages are at the bottom of
the barrel, so I think workers were already frustrated with conditions,” he
said. “There’s been a real push by the company toward efficiency, and people are getting a lot more pressure to increase productivity without any pay increase. We came along at a good time, and that gave workers an opportunity to channel their discontent into union organizing.”
Local 6 is prioritizing winning significant gains in the contract, not convincing workers to join the union. ”We need to prove the value of the union to these workers. After not having a strong presence here for so long, we want to deliver significant improvement in the contract to show workers why it’s worth signing up to defend that,” explained Hunter.
In addition to negotiating the new contract, an additional group of approximately 30 facility techs is organizing to join Local 6. An NLRB representational election was held on December 16. The company engaged in an intensive union-busting effort, hiring a third-party ‘union-avoidance’ consultant to scare workers out of joining the union. Despite the union-busting efforts, workers stayed strong and voted 15 to 11 to join the union. While there are contested ballots that need to be resolved before the result is official, Northern California ILWU Organizer Evan McLaughlin is confident that the final result will show the union has won.
Alvin Lester is the senior member of the negotiating committee. He has worked at Bio-Rad for nearly 25 years. He is the Local 6 Chief Steward and one of the few dues-paying union members. He said efforts to rebuild the union’s strength will give workers more power at the bargaining table.
“Revitalizing the union is important because it gives us a stronger position
to negotiate a contract. If our numbers and strength are increasing, management might not like us, but they will have to respect us,” said Lester. Negotiating Committee member Kayla Hardcastle has worked at Bio-Rad for 10 years. When she first started, she wasn’t aware that there was a union at the company. She only found out about it three years into her employment. Kayla said the organizing efforts have empowered her to become more outspoken, and she now has frequent discussions with colleagues about their shared concerns, such as wages and safety.
“Everybody’s looking forward to a livable wage,” she said. “It’s going to take all of us standing together to get what we deserve.”