At a hearing on the injunction Monday, the attorney for the National Labor Relations Board was only three minutes into her allotted 10-minute presentation when U.S. District Court judge Michael Davis asked her to stop.

NLRB attorney Florence Brammer was presenting the labor board\'s request for a 10J injunction ordering the Rochester Holiday Inn Express to rehire 19 terminated workers and recognize their union. The judge said he was very strongly inclined to support the injunction and wanted now to hear the employer\'s side.

The injunction was unnecessary, the employer\'s attorney argued, because a decision will come soon from an administrative law judge in this case. In addition, the attorney said, most of the terminated workers have found other jobs. "There\'s nothing irreparable," the employer\'s attorney maintained.

NLRB attorney Brammer countered that "irreparable harm" — the standard required for an injunction — is indeed the issue, for the workers, for their union, and for the public.

The workers were members of UNITE HERE Local 21 when the new owners of the Holiday Inn Express in Rochester fired all of the hotel\'s union employees four days before Christmas of this past year and refused to honor the union\'s contract. "These employees were displaced because of their union status," said Brammer. "The discrimination here… was not subtle."

For UNITE HERE Local 21, Brammer continued, "irreparable harm" derives from the fact that "the union has represented employees at this hotel for 37 years… This three-decade [unit] is gone as a direct result of [the employer\'s] action. The union will suffer irreparable harm if this unit is not reinstituted."

For the public, Brammer told the judge, "there is a sustained interest in having federal labor laws enforced."

Although the NLRB ruled in favor of the union and charged the hotel with an unfair labor practice complaint in March, the hotel is appealing the ruling, a process which could take months or years.

The public needs to see that rights granted under federal labor laws to employees and unions "mean something," Brammer said. Without the injunction, Brammer noted, the employer "will still accomplish its agenda" of unjustly terminating the workers and a union contract.

After hearing the two opposing attorneys, Judge Davis said he would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling by the end of the week.

Nine members of Local 21 who came to Minneapolis from Rochester for the hearing gathered outside the courtroom.

"I think there\'s a very good chance we\'ll get the injunction," said attorney Robert Metcalf, who represents Local 21. "If ever there was a case where the 10J injunction was warranted, this is it." The NLRB rarely requests this type of injunction, he observed. "These injunction requests are reserved for the worst of the worst."

If the injunction is granted, NLRB attorney Brammer told the group, the employer would have five days to offer employment to all of the 19 fired workers and also would be ordered to recognize the union and bargain a contract. If the injunction is not granted, she reminded them, the ongoing administrative law case still could bring a favorable decision.

But, she added, "it\'s the agency\'s position that the delay in the process is going to harm you and the union."

Members of the Rochester 19 attended the hearing on an injunction that would reinstate them to their jobs. Photo by Steve Share

The workers discussed the losses they\'ve experienced and their concerns about going back to work at the Holiday Inn Express.

"It took over two months to get back into a job," said Alicejean Murphy, a housekeeper for two years at the Holiday Inn Express.

UNITE HERE Local 21 business manager Dave Blanchard said most of the fired workers have found jobs at other Local 21 hotels.

Would the workers now want to go back to the Holiday Inn Express?

"I\'d be lying if I said it wouldn\'t be a tough decision for them," Blanchard said.

"I would like to but I don\'t know if I would," said Phyllis Johnson, who worked more than 12 years at the hotel. "I wouldn\'t know what to expect from the management."

A favorable ruling on the injunction, or the pending administrative law case, would require the hotel to pay full back pay for all of the fired workers to pay union scale to the non-union workers it hired to replace them.

Steve Share edits the Minneapolis Labor Review, the official publication of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council. Visit the CLUC\'s website, www.minneapolisunions.org

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