Unions pressure Oak Harbor retail customers

Unions pressure Oak Harbor retail customers The International Transport Workers’ Federation and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation on Tuesday came to the support of Teamsters union workers striking against Auburn, Wash.-based motor carrier Oak Harbor Freight Lines.
   The two union federations asked the Gap Inc., Oak Harbor’s largest customer, to suspend business with the less-than-truckload carrier for refusing to negotiate, hiring “professional strike breakers” and using a firm that specializes in breaking strikes.
   ITWF General Secretary David Cockroft also wrote Kmart and J.C. Penney and asked the retailers to review their relationship with Oak Harbor.
   Teamster members last week tried to pressure the Gap to switch carriers by handing pamphlets about the dispute to shoppers at some of its Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic stores.
   About 500 workers walked off the job last month at Oak Harbor facilities in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to protest failed contract talks and the company’s attempt to move the 45 percent of the workforce participating in the Teamster-run health care plan to one provided by the company. The union, which has also claimed company intimidation of unionized employees, has picketed terminals in those states, as well as in California and Nevada.
   The regional carrier experienced two days of reduced service levels in the Northwest, but quickly bounced back with the help of replacement workers, management drivers and transfers from non-Teamster represented terminals. A quarter of the workers on strike have returned to work, according to the company.
   “We are currently 100 percent operational system wide and are providing the pre-strike levels of service to our customers,” Co-President David Vander Pol said via e-mail. “We have some customers that have yet to come back, however, we believe they will over time.”
   An ITFW news release identified two of those companies as Recreational Equipment Inc., better known as REI, and Urban Outfitters. ' Eric Kulisch