Cole’s Quality Foods Workers Win RWDSU Voice in Iowa (4/6/09)

Workers at Cole’s Quality Foods in North Liberty, Iowa, have joined the RWDSU. The 44 employees at Cole’s, a facility that produces frozen breadsticks, joined Local 110 through an election on February 17. Represented are production, sanitation, and maintenance workers at the facility. Cole’s workers complained of rampant favoritism and a management that routinely turned a blind eye to the concerns of its employees.

“There was no communication between workers and management at Cole’s, they didn’t listen to us,” said DeCarlo Perry, a case-packer at the plant. “I had a broken horn on my pallet jack, once it took four days to get it fixed, and a similar problem previously took four months. There is a lot of traffic on that floor, and this created a really dangerous situation. But they were never in a hurry to fix anything. When things did get fixed, often they were jury-rigged repairs with duct tape.”

Cole's employees Matt Shepherd (left) and DeCarlo Perry 

According to Oven Operator Matt Shepherd, benefits and fair treatment were often subject to an employee’s relationship with management.

“Favoritism was a big problem here and one of the reasons we wanted a union voice. They played the game of giving promotions and raises to certain people, and not others, depending upon how chummy they were with them. Quality of performance didn’t seem to factor into it much.”

This led to another complaint of Cole’s employees: broken promises.
“I was offered an advanced position; they told me I had it. I went home and told my family, and then came back into work the next morning only to find that they had changed their mind. This happened to me twice,” Shepherd said.
“Broken promises are a big problem around here,” Perry added. “I’m still waiting for a raise that was promised to me for March 9.”

Cole’s employees began speaking with RWDSU organizers, and liked what they heard.

“The representatives from the RWDSU have been great. Roger Grobstich and Paula Kinkin listened to our concerns, educated us on what a union voice could realistically do for us, and never made the kinds of false promises that management were making to try to keep the union out,” Shepherd said.

“While the company was holding meetings once week, promising us everything would change after we voted ‘no’ on the union, and doing things like finally fixing the broken water fountain we had been complaining about for months, we were creating something special with the union and each other. The RWDSU is like a family.”

The RWDSU team is preparing to negotiate the first contract for Cole’s members.