Anatomy of an Anti-Union Meeting

American prospect (8/2/21)

“On June 11, every remaining worker at the North Carolina facility lost their job. No Evil Foods announced it would outsource production of its foods to a separate manufacturer in Danville, Illinois, eliminating the need for the workforce. “In-house manufacturing with our own team was something we built, loved, and fought for very hard,” Woliansky said in a statement. “Ultimately, however, for a company of our size to survive in the hyper-competitive marketplace, the co-manufacturing model will be required going forward.” Discourse Blog reported that the co-manufacturer also makes meat products.

Workers were given no notice; the day they found out, at a staff meeting with a tearful Woliansky, was their last day on the job. Nobody got a day of severance. Health benefits were immediately canceled. Woliansky claimed in the meeting that the company had run out of money and had to make this tough decision. But No Evil Foods wasn’t shutting down; it was just outsourcing its labor. Schadel, in her statement, made it sound like this was simply the evolution of the company: “With this next phase of No Evil Foods, we look forward to continuing to deliver delicious, sustainable foods to our customers that they can feel great about eating.”

The company did give workers an envelope on the way out; it included a form letter of recommendation and a flyer for a job fair in Asheville.

“Screw all of y’all,” said one worker before leaving.

Rarely do you get an opportunity to see exactly how important a union job would have been to a group of workers. With a contract, they would have been able to negotiate over hazard pay and workplace conditions during the pandemic. They would have been warned 60 days in advance of any shuttering of the facility (small workplaces with under 100 employees, like No Evil Foods, are exempt from this legal requirement). They would have been able to work with the company to try to save their jobs. Instead, taking on faith that the bosses would look out for them and take care of them, the workers ended up with nothing.

The theme of the anti-union meetings was that unionization was a risk, a roll of the dice, a threat to the status quo. But businesses are inherently fraught with danger. The risk is always present, as workers at No Evil Foods found out one year later.”