An arduous five-year campaign to achieve IBEW representation is successful at last for the more than 160 men and women who work at a Conagra cooking spray manufacturing plant in eastern Illinois, after they ratified a collective bargaining agreement between Danville Local 538 and the North American food conglomerate.
Most of their struggle, though, hadn’t been with Conagra, which completed its purchase of the factory only a couple of months earlier.
“The initial conversations with Conagra, before even getting to the bargaining table, were a breath of fresh air,” said Local 538 Business Manager Aaron Goodrum.
Rather, campaign organizers agreed that most of the problems stemmed from the oppressive opposition to unionization of the previous owner, Full-Fill Industries, a family-owned company founded in the village of Henning in 1999.
A string of factory closures left Full-Fill one of a few area employers, with workers relating stories of sweatshop-style working conditions, draconian management, low pay and rapid turnover. In 2019, a majority of fed-up Full-Fill workers voted to organize with Local 538.
The company’s managers, though, refused to bargain for a first contract and even withdrew recognition of Local 538 a year later.
“They hoped we’d lose interest and walk away from bargaining,” said Shad Etchason, the Sixth District international representative who services Local 538.
Refusing to go anywhere, the IBEW filed several unfair labor practice charges against Full-Fill with the National Labor Relations Board. At the time, the board was stacked 3-1 with anti-unionists appointed by President Donald Trump, and it sided with the company.
Union activists kept the organizing campaign alive, and in 2021, they testified before an administrative law judge against Full-Fill’s efforts to decertify the IBEW.
The following year, the judge ordered Full-Fill to recognize Local 538. By then, the NLRB had its current pro-worker majority, thanks to President Joe Biden’s appointments, and the board upheld the judge’s ruling.
“We wouldn’t have won those hearings if those workers didn’t step up and testify,” said Lynn Arwood, a Sixth District regional organizing coordinator who was involved with the unionizing campaign from the start, along with Etchason and Director of Professional/Industrial Organizing Joe DiMichele, then an international lead organizer.
“The employees at Full-Fill stuck together,” DiMichele said. “I am so proud of them all for moving forward and never stepping back.” (Read more in The Electrical Worker’s August 2020 and April 2022 editions.)
Then earlier this year, organizers saw signs of change at the company. “Things in late spring slowed down,” Etchason said. “We weren’t getting a lot of responses from Full-Fill.”
“We’d reached a tentative agreement with them on several things,” Goodrum said. “We were getting down to basically the economic stuff, but we were still far apart.”
Management representatives from Full-Fill and Conagra in June told the plant’s workers about the coming sale.
“The same day, I got a call from [Conagra’s] labor relations team, letting me know that this is getting ready to happen, and ‘we’re going to get right into negotiations,’” said Goodrum, who had worked closely on the campaign under former Local 538 Business Manager Mike Arbuckle.
“They said, ‘We want to get it wrapped up, make some food, make some money and start a good relationship,’” Goodrum said. About half of Conagra’s plants in North America are union facilities, he said, and close to two-thirds of its workers belong to unions.
Conagra’s labor relations people acknowledged the Full-Fill workers’ struggles. “They said, ‘We have no intentions of continuing the same style.’ It was a complete 180 kind of shift.”
The sale was official July 1, and the parties quickly scheduled bargaining for August. “On our third meeting, we reached a tentative agreement,” said Goodrum, marveling at how smoothly things had gone.
“More than once, I said to my colleagues, ‘Do you remember the show “Punk’d”?’” he said. “I feel like I’m on that show in some of these meetings, like I’m waiting for someone in a corner to say, ‘Gotcha!’”
The workers ratified a three-year agreement with annual wage increases, grievance procedures and more.
Another benefit of the Conagra acquisition is that it’s helped Local 538 capture previously nonunion wire work at the plant. “Once Conagra was established, they realized that a lot of systems updating needed to take place,” Etchason said.
“They had some contractors come in for quotes,” Goodrum added. “One of our signatory contractors got the job and hired additional help out of our hall. It’s opened the door for us to get in the facility and show them what we can do.”
More work for Local 538 could be on the way for manufacturers and wiremen, he said, as Conagra assesses expansion opportunities. “I’m excited to see how it progresses here in the coming years.”
The IBEW’s team acknowledged all the work and sacrifice that led to these achievements.
“It was a ‘one day longer’ thing. We kept saying to them, ‘We keep winning, we’ve won everything we filed,’” Arwood said.
“It shows how important it is to be committed, to be persistent,” Etchason added.
IBEW Manufacturing Director Brian Lamm agreed. “It also spotlights that when the IBEW and workers persist, we win,” he said.
Goodrum also noted the “ton of help” for the campaign by the Sixth District and the International Office.
“This would not have happened without the dedication of Local 538,” DiMichele added.
“To finally see it come to a close and to be set, it makes you feel good,” Goodrum said.