Union spat at Yuengling still foaming

POTTSVILLE, Pa. - Dick Yuengling Jr., fifth-generation owner of the brewery that bears his name, called his employees together a few weeks before their contract was set to expire to talk about the future of the 178-year-old business.

"Read between the lines," he told them at one point, according to government documents on the management-union feud that followed.

Depending on whom you ask, Yuengling's speech was either a pep talk to urge employees to work harder or an ultimatum to dump the Teamsters union, which is what they did last year.

The union has fought back, urging a boycott of Yuengling beer. The Schuylkill County company says the effort has fallen flat - with "absolutely zero feedback" from the marketplace, chief operating officer David Casinelli said.

Now the Teamsters say they will try to get state lawmakers to intervene in what they assert has been an unfair fight.

However faintly, the spat echoes the epic labor battles of more than century ago in this hardscrabble region, about 75 miles northwest of Philadelphia. At that time, coal miners unionized and went on strike, demanding better pay and working conditions.

Union leaders say Yuengling told the workers that he would sell the business or shut it down unless they shed their decades-long affiliation with the Teamsters. How else, they ask, to explain the sudden decision to decertify?

The brewery says employees started a decertification drive with no encouragement or interference from the owner.

"The company simply honored the employees' wishes," Casinelli said.

The National Labor Relations Board found no evidence that management had pressured employees to leave Philadelphia-based Local 830.

No surprise there, the Teamsters said. Employees were too scared of losing their $20-an-hour jobs to testify about what was said at the meeting, union leaders said.

"Pottsville's a very small town, and the Yuengling brewery's the only game in town, so there was great pressure from the people of Pottsville to not say anything," said Daniel Grace, head of Local 830.

Yuengling, a small regional brewery for most of its history, grew explosively in the 1990s, driven by the popularity of a lager it introduced in 1987. It distributes in 10 states.

With production of 1.58 million barrels in 2006, Yuengling is the nation's top regional brewer, according to Eric Shepard at Beer Marketer's Insights.

Grace said the union had had a good relationship with Yuengling until a few years ago, when the labor board awarded back pay to several employees who Grace said had been laid off without regard to seniority. That, he said, prompted the owner in early 2006 to give the workers an ultimatum to get rid of the union. The union represented nearly 80 employees in the brewhouse, the bottling shop and the warehouse. In all, the company has about 200 employees.

"If he doesn't want union people, then I would say union people shouldn't drink his beer," said Patrick Eiding, president of the Philadelphia council of the AFL-CIO.

When the union took its allegations to the NLRB's Philadelphia office, Grace said, no one would testify against Yuengling.

Instead, workers told board investigators that Dick Yuengling had given them a "pep talk" about the company's future "and the need for employees to work harder," said Dorothy Moore-Duncan, an NLRB regional director.

At the Brass Tap Tavern a few blocks from the brewery, patrons had mixed feelings about the union's boycott call.

Don Long, 31, a municipal worker who plans to join a union next month, said he sympathized with the workers.

Yuengling's owner "doesn't care for his workers. He just cares about how much money he can make," said Long, who said he would observe the boycott.

But Barry Sponsler, 49, a software developer, said he would continue drinking Yuengling.

"There's not a lot of jobs around here, and they provide a lot of employment," he said of the company. "If the union gets decertified, it's because they're not adding value."

The union side: Teamsters say the owner of D.G. Yuengling & Son threatened to close the brewery unless workers decertified the union.

The company side: Yuengling says the workers voted out the union on their own.

The ruling: The National Labor Relations Board sided with the company, saying there was no evidence of pressure on the workers.

The boycott: The Teamsters want members to boycott Yuengling products. The boycott has not appeared successful so far.

SOURCE: Associated PressEndText