'Human Rights Watch' Calls Tesco and its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market 'Labor Rights Violator' in the USA

Pictured above is Tesco plc director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA CEO Tim Mason. Mason came to America in 2006 to start up Fresh & Easy for Tesco as the CEO. The first stores openened in November 2007. Prior to coming the the U.S., he was director of marketing for Tesco, at its global corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom. In March, 2011, Mason will be given the title of Co-CEO of Tesco plc, although the company says he will remain in California as CEO of Fresh & Easy. See here.

News & Analysis

The New York City-based human rights watchdog group Human Rights Watch issued a blistering report today that singles out United Kingdom-based Tesco and its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA as one of a handful of European companies doing business in the U.S. that have been "carrying out aggressive campaigns to keep their employees in the United States from organizing and bargaining, violating international standards and, often, US labor laws."

The charge by Human Rights Watch comes amidst a now three year campaign by the United Food & Commercial Workers union (UFCW) to organize store-level employees at Tesco's Fresh & Easy, which has 159 stores in California (Southern and the Central Valley); Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona; and in Nevada's Las Vegas Metro region.

"Many European companies that publicly embrace workers' rights under global labor standards nevertheless undermine workers' rights in their U.S. operations, a Human Rights Watch spokesperson says. Tesco [with Fresh & Easy] is one of those European companies."

The 130-page report, "A Strange Case: Violations of Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States by European Multinational Corporations," goes into some detail, quoting a few former Tesco Fresh & Easy employees.

For example, Shasta Furman, a former worker at a Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store in San Diego, says in the report: "It was constantly driven home to us in team-lead meetings that we should tell employees they have no need for the union, that the company will take care of them so they don't need a union. When the union started passing out flyers outside our store, my manager told us 'You don't want to be part of it. These are not the right people for you.'"

Another former Fresh & Easy San Diego store employee, team leader (assistant manager) Fred Baquet, told Human Rights Watch in an interview for the report: "We had lots of issues. The time sheets were confusing. They had us working through breaks and lunch. People lost a lot of money. I would bring up people's pay problems and management would tell me to tell them... 'If you don't like it, there's the door.' People came to me with complaints and I told them, 'My job's on the line, too.' The managers were always preaching 'no union' to us. Anything union was unmentionable because it could cost you your job."

Human Rights Watch says today's report is based on interviews with workers, employees' legal testimonies, findings of US arbitration panels, company documents, and written exchanges with company management. The report is part of the human rights group's efforts to further strengthen and promote labor laws in the U.S, which it argues are designed to allow employers to side-step human rights conventions and prevent unions from organizing workers.

Along with United Kingdom-based Tesco, which owns and operates El-Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the following European companies doing business in the U.S. are named in the report: Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile; Deutsche Post and DHL Express; mSaint-Gobain; Sodexo; Group 4 Securicor PLC; Kongsberg Automotive100; Gamma Holding and National Wire Fabric107; Siemens115.

"The behavior of these companies, including Tesco's Fresh & Easy, casts serious doubt on the value of voluntary commitments to human rights," says Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "Companies need to be held accountable, to their own stated commitments and to strong legal standards."

Among the violations Human Rights Watch says it documents in the report are "practices of forcing workers into 'captive audience' meetings to hear anti-union harangues while prohibiting pro-union voices, threatening dire consequences if workers form unions, threatening to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike, spying on employee organizers, and even firing workers who support organizing efforts at companies."

Human Rights Watch says this about Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA: Fresh & Easy "has created an anti-union atmosphere, and employees who want to organize union activities live in fear for their jobs."

Here are links to two responses to Human Rights Watch from Tesco regarding the organization's claims and report: Response from Tescoto HRW 7-26-2010 and Response from Tesco to HRW10-22-09.

Tesco said today in a statement about the report, which singles out its Fresh & Easy chain as a human rights violator when it comes to labor relations: "Wherever we operate, all staff are free to join trade unions and we have positive relations with trade unions around the world...This report is a further example of misleading allegations being used to misrepresent our position."

In describing the methodology behind its report, Human Rights Watch says: "The Human Rights Watch report is based on thirty interviews with workers and employees' testimony in legal proceedings, findings and decisions of US labor law authorities, company documents, and written exchanges with company management.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has lost two cases in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearings before Administrative Law Court Judges this year, in which employees and the UFCW union charged the grocery chain with violations of the U.S. Labor Relations Act. Fresh & Easy Buzz reported on both of these cases. In fact, Human Rights Watch sites those two cases as the primary basis for its arguments in today's report. (See here.)

Read the two stories linked below:

>March 4, 2010: Administrative Law Judge Finds Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Violated Labor Relations Act in Ex-Store Employee, UFCW Union Complaint

>June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case

A couple months ago, Tesco bought out its meat suppler for Fresh & Easy, 2 Sisters Food Group. The buyout came shortly after an Administrative Law Judge found 2 Sisters Food Group, which was an independent company that had no ownership affiliation with Tesco or Tesco's Fresh & Easy, in violation of U.S. labor laws in a case involving its firing of six employees over the issue of a union vote at the meat plant. Read our June report: June 20, 2010 NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case. Also see: June 21, 2010: The Missing Link in Tesco's Purchase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Meat Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group.'

Tesco brought 2 Sisters Food Group's (its major meat product supplier in the UK) along with it in 2006-2007, when it set up shop in Southern California for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. A couple months ago Tesco bought out 2 Sisters Food Group, along with its produce supplier for Fresh & Easy, Wild Rocket, for what Tesco director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason will only say was "tens of millions" of dollars.

Fresh & Easy Buzz has been closely covering the UFCW union/Tesco Fresh & Easy labor issue for nearly three years. We written reported extensively on the topic, along with offering much analysis. [Click here, here and here for a selection of our stories on the topic/issue. Use the older link at the bottom of the linked page for additional stories and pages.]

In our analysis, it's too early to know the affect today's Human Rights Watch report will have on Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. However, the human rights group is respected, and counts among its members numerous influential opinion leaders from various walks of like, including many who live in California, where Fresh & Easy is headquartered and has 98 of its current 159 stores. (Thirty four stores are in Metro Phoenix; 27 in Metro Las Vegas.)

We do see the report, and the Human Rights Watch support, as giving the UFCW's on-going efforts to organize Fresh & Easy employees a boost. The union will now be able to point to the human rights group as a respected independent source which agrees with what the union has been arguing about Tesco's Fresh & Easy since 2007, which is that it will do whatever it takes to remain non-union, a charge Tesco has denied is true.

But approval of labor unions by U.S. consumers is at a near all time low, according to Gallup, the leading U.S. polling firm.

A slim majority of 52% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, the second lowest approval rating in Gallup's 70-year history of polling on the topic, behind only last year's 48%, the polling firm found in a poll taken this month (August 5-8, 2010).

Gallup says it first asked Americans to evaluate labor unions in 1936, at which time 72% approved. The all-time high of 75% approval came in 1953 and 1957 surveys. Support for unions declined in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but mostly hovered around the 60% mark until last year, when it dropped below the majority level for the first time, according to the polling firm.

In the August, 2010 poll, 10% of Americans identify themselves as union members, and an additional 6% say another member of their household belongs to a union. Seventy-two percent of Americans who are union members or live in a union household approve of unions, compared with 48% of those in non-union households.

Union approval varies widely by political party affiliation - It's 71% among Democrats compared with 34% of Republicans and 49% among independents. All three party groups expressed their lowest approval of unions last year and, although views improved slightly, they remain less positive than before.

Gallup finds significantly more Americans saying they want labor unions to have less (40%) rather than more (29%) influence than they have today. Twenty-seven percent say their influence should stay about the same.

Prior to last year, Americans were about equally divided in saying they wanted labor unions to have more versus less influence, or showed a tendency toward wanting unions to have more influence.

Regardless of their preference, Americans by a nearly 2-to-1 margin predict union influence will decline in the future. The poll finds 46% of Americans saying unions will become weaker in the future compared with 25% who say stronger. This general pattern has held each time Gallup has asked the question since 1999.

Gallup adds a slight caveat to the poll results however: "Labor unions are less popular now in the United States than they have been for most of the last 70 years. One reason for this could be the economic downturn. With many Americans out of work and struggling to find work, organized labor groups' missions may not seem appropriate or even fair as they might have when jobs are more plentiful. There is some precedence for an economic-related downturn in union approval, as Gallup found a mild drop in union approval during the late 1970s and early 1980s when the U.S. economy was in poor shape."

Additionally, "The more negative appraisal of unions the last two years could be due to the belief from union opponents that unions are likely to benefit or are benefiting from the policies of the Obama administration, including recent legislation providing aid to states that will preserve thousands of education and public sector jobs," Gallup adds about the poll's results.

Fresh & Easy Buzz doesn't put its stock in one poll. However, numerous other polls reflect opinions similar to what Gallup found this month.

But it's important to not lump all unions into the same pile. For example, in California the UFCW union is very strong. The state's top grocery chains - Kroger (Ralphs/Food 4 Less), Safeway/Vons, Albertsons, Stater Bros., Save Mart, Raley's and numerous others, as well as many multi and even single-store independents - are unionized. These grocers represent the majority of groceries sold in California annually from a market share perspective.

The UFCW is a fairly popular union in California overall. This is evidenced in the level of support union-store employees tend to get from shoppers whenever they've gone out on strike over contract issues with the chains. Although we've seen the level of popularity wane a bit over the last decade.

But, on the other hand, the fastest-growing food and grocery retailers in California - and in most parts of the U.S. - are non-union. These include Walmart, which is now the number one grocery retailer in America, Costco (it has some union affiliation in Northern California), Target, Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, Sprouts Farmers Market, Henry's Farmers Market, Tesco's Fresh & Easy, and a couple others.

The UFCW hasn't been able to unionize any of the fast-growing chains mentioned above, even though in some instances - Walmart particularly - it been trying to do so for over a decade.

The less than enthusiastic opinion of labor unions does help Tesco in its battle with the UFCW, although it is a relative form of help. For example, with two Administrative Law Judges finding Tesco's Fresh & Easy in violation of U.S. labor law so far this year - and we're told more cases are going to be brought to the NLRB by current and former Fresh & Easy employees together with the UFCW - the grocer is giving its opposition a lot of ammunition.

Right now, the store to watch in terms of union organization and activity at Tesco's Fresh & Easy is its unit at 4211 Eagle Rock Boulevard, in the Glassell Park neighborhood in northeast Los Angeles.

As we recently reported in this story - July 24, 2010: Employees at the Glassell Park-Eagle Rock Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store in Los Angeles Seeking Union Recognition From Tesco - A group of employees recently told Fresh & Easy Buzz they have or are close to having a majority of store workers in agreement that they want to join the United Foods & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union.

Some of the store's employees met with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market executives at corporate headquarters in El Segundo, California on March 26, and requested to be recognized as a union store, as we reported in the July piece linked above. Tesco has thus far denied the Glassell Park store workers' request, which isn't uncommon for a company to do.

You can read the full report issued today by Human Rights Watch, "A Strange Case: Violations of Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States by European Multinational Corporations," here.

The Missing Link in Tesco's Purchase of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Meat Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group'

Pictured above is (the artists rendering) the '2 Sisters Food Group' facility in Riverside County, California, which is located next to Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market distribution center. Dynamic Builders, the contractor for the 2 Sisters' building, set up a cellular-cam during construction. You can view a slide-show and a time-lapse video show of the construction of the facility here. It's worth a look.

Analysis/Commentary

Yesterday (June 20, 2010) Fresh & Easy Buzz broke the story that a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge, Lana H. Parke, on June 10 ruled against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's fresh meat and prepared foods ingredient supplier, United Kingdom-based 2 Sisters Food Group, in an unfair labor practices case brought against it by the United Foods & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union.

[Read our story here: June 20, 2010 - NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case.]

Fresh & Easy Buzz is the only publication to report on the judge's decision thus far, based on a search we just completed.

However, interestingly, today's Financial Times just happens to have a short story, "Tesco takes over Fresh & Easy suppliers," which features an interview with Tesco plc director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason, who hasn't spoken to the press in a rather long time, and who now is in the sites of The CtW Investment Group, which works with pension funds sponsored by the Change to Win coalition of U.S. labor unions, for the substantial pay package he recently received. See our June 4, 2010 story: Every Little (Bit) Helps: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Mason Paid $6.188 Million For 2009]

Last week, on June 17, CtW Investment Group sent this letter (and this press release to the media) to Tesco shareholders regarding what the group says is excessive remuneration for Mr. Mason. In the letter they urge Tesco shareholders to vote no on proxy Item #2, the Directors’ Remuneration Report, at Tesco’s upcoming July 2nd shareholder meeting in the UK.

In the story today (it's here), Tim Mason tells the Financial Times that Tesco is buying and taking over 2 Sisters Food Group and its other privately-owned in-house supplier, Wild Rocket Foods, which serves as Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's fresh produce procurement arm.

The story says: Tim Mason, the head of the Fresh & Easy business, told the Financial Times it was a sign of its commitment to the US business. While not large enough to require disclosure, he said the transaction involved “tens of millions of dollars” and “a real amount of money”.

If not large enough to require disclosure, Why did Mason disclose it at all. And why specifically disclose it today in the Financial Times, the day after our story on the NRLB decision against 2 Sisters Food group? There's no press release on the subject in the "newsroom" on the Fresh & Easy website, for example.

2 Sisters Food Group and Wild Rocket Foods are privately-owned companies. Tesco brought both firms to the U.S. to serve as its supply partners for Fresh & Easy. Both companies have facilities next door to Tesco's 850,000 square-foot Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market distribution center in Riverside County, California. The impressive 2 Sisters Food Group facility is only a few years old and is about 53,000 square-feet. The facility was a substantial investment for the company.

In the story, Fresh & Easy CEO Mason also says: "The move (buying 2 Sisters Food Group and Wild Rocket Foods) would lead to 'synergies and economies by putting the management teams of the units together. . . we think will be very beneficial for the business." OK.

Mason is also attributed by the Financial Times' reporter as saying '2 Sisters Food Group and Wild Rocket Foods had not performed as well as their owners had hoped, as Fresh & Easy slowed its expansion plans.'

"Has Fresh & Easy gone more slowly than we initially planned and they initially planned? Well, yes. And that has obvious consequences," Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Mason is quoted as saying in the story.

What isn't said in the Financial Times' story today of course is that both suppliers have been losing far more money as part of Tesco's U.S. venture that they had ever expected to. Both firms essentially wanted out of the deal - and it now appears they are.

Interestingly, the Financial Times story says nothing about the NLRB Administrative Law Judge's June 10 decision against 2 Sisters Food Group, which we reported yesterday.

The UFCW first filed an unfair labor practices complaint against 2 Sisters Food Group in 2008, as we reported here [August 27, 2008 we reported in this piece - UFCW Union Reports Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Prepared Foods Supplier to Labor Board For What it Says is Unfair Firing of Six Employees] and in our story yesterday. Paying for nearly two years' of legal costs in fighting the charges, which resulted on June 10 in a victory for the UFCW union, has just added to 2 Sisters Food Group's expenses in California.

Unfortunately nothing Tim Mason says in the Financial Times story, in the couple sentences about sales, same-store-sales and the like, sheds any light on Fresh & Easy's performance. It's just a brief repetition of the generalized comments, void of any metrics, Tesco made when it reported its fiscal year 2009/10 sales and earnings in April.

We aren't surprised Tesco is buying its produce supplier Wild Rocket Foods. They signaled this in part when they transferred Tim Lee from UK corporate headquarters to Fresh & Easy USA, as its new director of fresh foods.

Tim Lee's specialty at Tesco's corporate headquarters in the UK, where he was a produce category procurement director, was fresh produce. There Lee and another Tesco produce category procurement director, Alex Dower, launched Tesco's global fresh produce sourcing buying and supply chain initiative in about mid-2009. The initiative focuses on direct procurement of fresh produce for Tesco stores in the UK and continental Europe. Lee's responsibilities included setting up satellite offices in growing and sourcing regions around the world and staffing the offices with technical specialists and produce buying teams.

Basically, what Tesco is doing with Wild Rocket Foods is buying it and folding it into its corporate procurement function, with a California Fresh & Easy twist, which Tim Lee was responsible for in the UK, and was sent to Fresh & Easy in part to do in some form.

Another signal Tesco was up to something with its produce procurement came when we learned - and reported here - June 9, 2010: Key 'Veteran' Fresh Produce Category Manager Chris Harris Leaves Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market - that fresh produce category manager Chris Harris had left Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. Harris' departure now takes on a much brighter picture in light of Tesco's buying of Wild Rocket Foods, combined with the naming of Tim Lee as director of fresh foods a few months ago. (We commented in the piece linked above that Lee was making some changes to Fresh & Easy's produce procurement since coming on board. Check it out.)

In light of NLRB Administrative Law Judge Parke's June 10 ruling against 2 Sisters Food Group, we aren't surprised that Tesco is buying 2 Sisters' as well, although we didn't know it was until reading Mr. Mason's announcement today in the Financial Times, just a day after our story was published.

Buying 2 Sisters Food group and Wild Rocket Foods though is a complete 180 degree turn by Tesco. The key reason Tesco brought 2 Sisters Food Group and Wild Rocket Foods with it to America was so that it could outsource the labor intensive fresh meat and produce functions, thereby saving considerable labor costs.

As such, does it logically (and financially) follow that Tesco wants to buy the two companies, since doing so means adding hundreds (CEO Mason says 750 in the Financial Times story) of new employees to the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market payroll? Not on your life.

However, 2 Sisters is Tesco's primary fresh meat supplier in the UK. Additionally, Wild Rocket is owned by Tesco's leading fresh produce supplier in the UK, Langmead Farms. These relationships also help explain why Tesco would want to bailout the two companies by taking over their respective U.S. operations., even though the cost is in the "tens of millions," according to Tesco director and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market CEO Mason.

We've been hearing from sources for some time that both 2 Sisters Food Group and Wild Rocket have been bleeding red ink, hoping for something to give, like an increase in sales volume at Fresh & Easy. It appears now both suppliers - what Tesco designed as it outsourcing hat trick fro Fresh & Easy - will bleed red ink no more in California, but rather take what they can get from Tesco and head back to the United Kingdom.

And since it's selling its U.S. operations to Tesco, 2 Sisters Food Group won't have to follow all those remedies the NRLB Administrative Law Judge laid out in her June 10 ruling. Tesco might have to though.

Related stories:

June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case

June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case

June 12, 2010: Will Phil Clarke Shake Things up at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA When He Becomes Tesco CEO in 2011?

June 8, 2010: Tesco CEO Terry Leahy Retiring; Philip Clarke New CEO; Tim Mason Named Deputy CEO But Will Remain Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Chief in U.S.

June 4, 2010: Every Little (Bit) Helps: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Mason Paid $6.188 Million For 2009

NLRB Judge Rules Against Key Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Supplier '2 Sisters Food Group' in Labor Relations Violations Case

On August 27, 2008 we reported in this piece - UFCW Union Reports Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Prepared Foods Supplier to Labor Board For What it Says is Unfair Firing of Six Employees - that the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union charged Tesco-owned Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's UK-headquartered fresh meat and fresh-prepared foods supplier 2 Sisters Food Group with unfair labor practices at its Riverside County, California plant, filing a complaint against it with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), for what the union said was the unfair firing of six employees for attending a union recruitment meeting, along with filing complaints against the workers' managers at the company.

UK-based Tesco brought 2 Sisters Food Group with it to the U.S. in 2007 to be its supplier of fresh meat and poultry and fresh-prepared foods. 2 Sisters is independently-owned and is not connected to Tesco corporately. However it serves as a quasi-in-house supplier to Fresh & Easy for the products in these two categories.

The UFCW began a campaign to unionize employees at the 2 Sisters Food Group plant in Riverside County in early 2008, just as it did with Fresh & Easy's store-level employees a couple months earlier

Nearly two years later (after the first of multiple complaints was filed as reported in our August story linked above), on June 10, 2010, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge, Lana H. Parke, has reached a decision on the 2008 case, which was consolidated into a number of other complaints filed since then by the UFCW against 2 Sisters Food Group.

The consolidated complaint in the case, which was tried by Judge Parke on March 1-3 in Riverside County, California, where 2 Sisters Food Group is based near Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's distribution facility, and on March 1-3 and in Los Angeles, alleged that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market violated Sections 8(a)(3) and (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, according the the judge's ruling summary.

A key, but not sole, complaint in the case by the UFCW is that 2 Sisters Food Group interfered with a July 17, 2009 election by company employees, the positive results of which would have unionized the company. The union's chief goal in the case was to get the election, which the employees that favored unionization lost, set aside on the grounds the company's interference in it resulted in an unfair election.

Below are the three key UFCW complaints against 2 Sisters' in the case that Judge Parke ruled on, in favor of the UFCW and against 2 Sisters Food Group:

1. Did the Respondent (2 Sisters Food Group) violate Section 8(a)(1) of the Act by promulgating and maintaining overbroad rules, including solicitation and distribution rules and a rule waiving employees’ right to file charges with the Board, all of which has interfered with, restrained, and coerced employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights?

2. Did the Respondent violate Sections 8(a)(3) and (1) of the Act by terminating employee Xonia Trespalacios on July 13, 2009? (this goes to the original complaint reported on in our August 2008 piece.)

3. Did the Respondent engage in conduct that affected the results of the representation election held July 17, 2009 so as to require the setting aside of the election?

In her June 10, 2010 ruling, Judge Parke ruled for the UFCW and against 2 Sisters Food Group on the union's key issue, that the election held on July 17, 2009 (number 3 above) be set aside and a new election held.

In her decision conclusion in favor of the UFCW, Judge Parke wrote: "In as much as I have recommended that Objections 4 and 37 be sustained, I recommend that the election held on July 17, 2009 in Case No. 21-RC-21137 be set aside and that the representation proceeding be remanded to the Regional Director of Region 21 for the purpose of conducting a second election."

The judge also ruled that 2 Sisters Food Group must post a "Notice of Second Election" in a place where all employees can see it on company premises. The heading of that notice reads:

"The election conducted on July 17, 2009 was set aside because the National Labor Relations Board found that certain conduct of the Employer interfered with the employees' exercise of a free and reasoned choice among employees in the following unit: All full-time and regular part-time production employees, maintenance employees, technical/quality assurance employees, sanitation employees, shipping and receiving employees and plant clerical employees employed by the Employer at its Riverside facility, excluding all other employees, temporary employees, office clerical employees, professional employees, guards and supervisors as defined in the Act. [You can view the notice here.]

In the firing of employee Xonia Trespalacios, Judge Parke's remedy is a strong one for the employee: "The Respondent (2 Sisters Food Group) having unlawfully terminated employee Xonia Trespalacios, it must offer her reinstatement and make her whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits. Backpay shall be computed on a quarterly basis from the dates of her discharge to the date of proper offer of reinstatement, less any net interim earnings, as prescribed in F. W. Woolworth Co., 90 NLRB 289 (1950), plus interest as computed in New Horizons for the Retarded, 283 NLRB 1173 (1987). The Respondent will be ordered to make appropriate emendations to Xonia Trespalacios’ personnel files. The Respondent will be ordered to post appropriate notices," the judge wrote.

Below are the recommended remedy's the Judge made in her ruling against 2 Sisters Food Group in the case:

Respondent, 2 Sisters Food Group, Inc., its officers, agents, successors, and assigns, shall

1. Cease and desist from:

(a) Promulgating and maintaining overbroad work rules and a mandatory arbitration rule that requires employees to waive their rights to file charges with the Board

(b) Terminating any employee for engaging in union activities and/or to discourage employees from engaging in union activities.

(c) In any like or related manner interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed them by Section 7 of the Act.

2. Take the following affirmative action necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act.

(a) Within 14 days from the date of this Order, offer employee Xonia Trespalacios full reinstatement to her former jobs or, if that job no longer exists, to substantially equivalent positions, without prejudice to her seniority or any other rights or privileges previously enjoyed

(b) Make employee Xonia Trespalacios whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the discrimination against her, in the manner set forth in the remedy section of the decision.

(c) Within 14 days from the date of this Order, remove from its files any reference to the unlawful termination of Xonia Trespalacios and within 3 days thereafter notify her in writing that this has been done and that the termination will not be used against her in any way.

(d) Preserve and, within 14 days of a request, or such additional time as the Regional Director may allow for good cause shown, provide at a reasonable place designated by the Board or its agents, all payroll records, social security payment records, time cards, personnel records and reports, and all other records, including an electronic copy of such records if stored in electronic form, necessary to analyze the amount of back pay due under the terms of this Order.

(e) Within 14 days after service by the Region, post at its facilities in Riverside, California copies of the attached notice marked “Appendix.”[23] Copies of the notice, on forms provided by the Regional Director for Region 21 after being signed by the Respondent's authorized representative, shall be posted by the Respondent immediately upon receipt and maintained for 60 consecutive days in conspicuous places including all places where notices to employees are customarily posted. Reasonable steps shall be taken by the Respondent to ensure that the notices are not altered, defaced, or covered by any other material. In the event that, during the pendency of these proceedings, the Respondent has gone out of business or closed the facility involved in these proceedings, the Respondent shall duplicate and mail, at its own expense, a copy of the notice to all current employees and former employees employed by Respondent at any time since July 13, 2009.

(f) Within 21 days after service by the Region, file with the Regional Director a sworn certification of a responsible official on a form provided by the Region attesting to the steps that Respondent has taken to comply.

[We suggest you read Judge Parke's full written ruling here. It offers numerous details of the case, as well as a summary of the issues in the case involving employees and their supervisors at the 2 Sisters Food Group facility in Riverside County, California.]

Judge Parke's June 10, 2010 ruling and order is pending. It must be approved by the NRLB.

2 Sisters Food Group has the right to appeal the Administrative Law Judge's ruling should it be approved by the NRLB, which most-likely it will per the agency's normal procedure following a judge's ruling.

The NLRB Administrative Law Judge's ruling is a clear victory in this instance for the union. The key finding from the UFCW's standpoint in terms of being able to unionize 2 Sisters Food Group's Riverside County facility is the provision that a new employee election must be held.

Related story - June 20, 2010: NLRB Judge Rules Against Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Spring Valley CA Store Labor Law Violation Case.