Delaware poultry worker files federal charges against local union, claiming violations
From The News Journal
An employee at a southern Delaware chicken plant has filed federal charges against the workers’ union representative, claiming “union officials are violating his and his coworkers’ rights by seizing union fees.”
Oscar Cruz Sosa, an employee at Mountaire Farms’ poultry processing plant in Selbyville, has filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union for threats and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the National Right to Work Foundation.
Sosa said the union seized union fees “under an unlawful forced dues provision in the union contract,” according to the release.
Sosa’s charges also allege that a union official visited Sosa at his home in March and threatened him for submitting a petition seeking a vote to remove the union from his workplace.
The charges come after a debate over decertification of the union, which union officials previously said represents about 800 employees at Allen Harim’s processing plant in Harbeson and 1,000 at Mountaire Farms’ processing plant in Selbyville. The local union also represents workers in other industries throughout the state.
Union spokesman Jonathan Williams said Mountaire Farms and the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation are behind that effort, but that the union’s current focus is on the safety of its members inside the facility.