The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently dismissed an unfair labor practices complaint with OK Foods that was filed on behalf of two former maintenance workers at its facility in Heavener, Oklahoma. According to NLRB, the complaint did not present enough evidence that the poultry company broke the law.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1000 filed the charges in May with the labor board and alleged the company violated the National Labor Relations Act by firing the two maintenance men who had been active in organizing a union vote at the Heavener facility.
Anthony Elmo, communications and political director for the UFCW Local 1000, told the Times Record that the union will appeal the decision by the labor board’s July 10 deadline. The threshold for the NLRB to issue a complaint over terminations regarding organizing activity is “unfairly high,” Elmo added.
OK Foods disputed the allegations that the fired employees lost their jobs because of union activities. Rather, the company stated that one of the workers was sleeping on the job, and the other employee lost his job for repeated failure to perform his job.
OK Foods, based in Fort Smith, Ark., was founded in the 1930s as a feed manufacturer, eventually moving into processed poultry business in the 1950s. O.K. Foods was purchased by Mexico-based poultry processor Bachoco in 2011.
