Business News

R.R. Donnelly Settles Unfair Labor Practice Charges with Teamsters

Monday 30. June 2008 - Settlement a Victory for Workers

Teamsters at R.R. Donnelly’s Pontiac, Illinois, printing facility have been vindicated with the company’s settlement of charges alleging that R.R. Donnelly spied on its employees and threatened them in retaliation for organizing with the Teamsters.

Subregion 33 of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against publishing giant R.R. Donnelly on behalf of employees seeking to organize with the Teamsters Union’s Graphic Communications Conference.

The NLRB’s complaint alleged that R.R. Donnelly managers spied on workers’ union activities, threatened to close the plant if employees joined the union, and threatened to retaliate against an employee if he continued to support the union.

R.R. Donnelly’s settlement includes the posting of a “notice to employees” that details how it “will not threaten our employees with unspecified reprisals because they choose to engage in union or other protected concerted activities.”

“We won a major victory with this settlement by R.R. Donnelly,” said George Tedeschi, GCC President and Teamsters International Vice President. “Employees have the right, under the law, to engage in union organizing activities and this settlement is evidence of that law.”

“Our victory should give aid and comfort to the thousands of other R.R. Donnelly employees who are planning to become members of the GCC in order to have the benefits of working under a collective bargaining agreement,” Tedeschi said.

The Graphic Communications Conference of the Teamsters Union represents more than 70,000 employees in the printing and publishing industry throughout the United States and Canada. The Teamsters Union was founded in 1903 and represents more than 1.4 million hard working men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.