Hear from Workers >> Bill Lawhorn
Bill Lawhorn | Fired from Consolidated Biscuit Co.
McComb, Ohio |
It was the first promise the company kept. The Consolidated Biscuit Co. (CBC) promised Bill Lawhorn that he would be fired if the workers’ campaign for a union failed. The day after the election, Bill was fired. That was 2002. Since then, various levels of the labor board have held the company fired Bill because of his union activity, which is illegal. It’s 2007. But Bill has not been reinstated, nor seen one cent of back pay. Bill wanted a union so that management at CBC would have to treat its workers with respect. He wanted a better life for him and his co-workers and knew they could get it by working together. Bill hoped that with a union, CBC might offer a good retirement plan. Out of 875 workers at the plant, 650 signed cards that said they wanted a union. CBC responded to the workers’ campaign with threats, intimidation, harassment and, in Bill’s case, by firing key union supporters. The company threatened workers with loss of benefits, plant closure and stricter discipline if they voted for the union. Fear spread like fire throughout the company as one by one workers became afraid to speak up. The union lost the election: 286 votes to 485. Bill looks for a job every week and hauls trash to earn extra money. He relies on his wife’s job and his children, who have lent him money. He keeps the hope that he will be reinstated at CBC and despite everything, Bill says if he had the chance to do it all over again, he’d do everything exactly the same. “It was the right thing to do,” says Bill. | 
