Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Cleaner fires back at union

Al Phillips the Cleaner Inc., a large retail and wholesale dry cleaning service in Las Vegas, has filed an unfair labor practices charge against the Union of Needletrades, Textile and Industrial Employees with the National Labor Relations Board as the union tries to organize roughly 120 Al Phillips employees.

The charge, filed Sept. 8, follows four similar charges filed by UNITE against Al Phillips the Cleaner, and a lawsuit filed in federal court by the union.

The company's charge against the union states that UNITE, "by its officers, agents and representatives has by the use of threats, vandalism and other acts and conduct, restrained and coerced employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act (National Labor Relations Act)."

The NLRB is investigating all of the charges, said Stephen Wamser, deputy regional attorney at the NLRB's regional office in Las Vegas. He said the next step would either be to seek a settlement between the two parties or to issue its own complaints against one or both.

A majority of the 120 to 150 Al Phillips employees who work at the company's central Las Vegas Plant at West Ali Baba Lane have picketed the plant since July 8, said Connie Razza, a research analyst with UNITE.

Some workers and union organizers have alleged that the company has engaged in unfair labor practices by violating a pledge to recognize the union if a majority of workers indicated their support. She said Al Phillips' charge against the union is another form of retaliation.

"That is a continuation of a pattern of obstruction from the company. Obstructing the workers' choice to be represented by the union. We have filed several unfair labor practices charges. The employees have been intimidated, harassed, threatened and (the company) changed the working conditions of several workers because of their union activity," Razza said.

However, company officials have said they will recognize the union through a traditional secret-ballot vote rather than through the union's preferred "card check" petition-signing procedure.

"We want to have the union conduct a secret ballot election," said Joshua Harmon, an attorney representing Al Phillips. "Al Phillips believes the workers' interests are best served by a secret ballot election."

Al Phillips, which has more than 16 locations throughout Las Vegas and Henderson, is a member company of the DCI Management Group (DCI), which is based in Arizona. DCI says it manages the largest group of affiliated dry cleaners in the United States, with more than 370 dry cleaning operations nationwide.

The company was acquired by DCI in 1999 from the Johnson Group, which first took ownership of the company in 1984. Earlier, the company was acquired by Phil and Melvin Shapiro in 1964. They acquired it from its founder, a man named Al Phillips.

Razza said that although interest in the union has been "broadly" expressed among the 250 employees who work at Al Phillips stores and the central plant in the Las Vegas area, she declined to specify which workers the union is trying to attract or whether the retail stores have been targeted for unionization along with the plant.

Currently, most Al Phillips workers make less than $10 an hour and most can't afford the health care plan the company offers its employees, said Razza. By comparison, most unionized workers in similar positions start at $10 an hour and have access to better health care benefits, she said.

UNITE members include laundry workers who clean linens for the city's casino resorts as well as distribution center workers for manufacturing companies. The group has 250,000 members in the United States and Canada and has organized about 4,000 workers in Las Vegas over its 10-year history.

Most local UNITED union members work in North Las Vegas, where many of the valley's industrial laundries and manufacturing plants are located. Major UNITE-represented companies include Mission Industries, which employs about 1,600 union members, and Flamingo Laundry, which employs another 400 or so members.

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