Seen a Rogue on the loose? Get in touch with our Roguemeister: JOHN SCHRAG jschrag@wweek.com (503) 243-2122 FAX: (503) 243-1115 Lewis & Clark College is a great place to learn, and the lesson absorbed by this week's Rogue, Skyline Building Maintenance, is that terminating union supporters in the middle of a union drive can backfire. Last fall, organizers from Service Employees International Union Local 49 targeted the two dozen janitors (most of them Latin-American immigrants) who keep Lewis & Clark clean. Union organizer Emile Jorgensen says his group focused on L & C because starting pay for janitors at the college--$6.25 per hour--is nearly 50 percent lower than at Reed College, which is unionized, as are Portland State and P.C.C. Not long after SEIU's organization drive started, two of the biggest union supporters--Juan Lopez and Erika Castillo--lost their jobs. (Skyline says Lopez walked off the job and Castillo was terminated during her probationary period.) The two filed claims with the National Labor Relations Board. In late December, before the board made its ruling, Skyline settled the claims. Although the company admitted no guilt, it agreed to pay the two workers $3,000 in lost wages and offer them their jobs back. Skyline also agreed to post an NLRB document affirming employees' rights at Lewis & Clark. For Castillo and Lopez, Skyline's agreement to settle was a welcome, if hollow, victory. Castillo moved back to Mexico before the decision was reached. Lopez had already taken another janitorial position at nearly twice his Lewis & Clark pay. "We think justice was served," Jorgensen says, "but we think the settlement serves to confirm our assertion that workers aren't free to choose whether or not to have a union." Hector Hinojosa, a Skyline official, says the company settled the case because it couldn't proceed with union elections as long as the charges were outstanding. But just how employees' desire for a union will be determined remains in dispute. The company is insisting that workers vote on whether they want a union via secret ballot, as required by NLRB rules; union organizers want the company simply to accept workers' signed support for the union as evidence of their choice. Skyline claims it has nothing against the union but just wants employees to make up their own minds rather than be browbeaten into signing union cards. "If employees want a union, we'll bargain in good faith," Hinojosa says. "If not, that's the end of the story."   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published January 6, 1998