Phil Cohen War Stories: Terminating Anti-Union Management

War Stories By Phil Cohen

During 1998, John Cummings was promoted to operations manager in the Receiving Department of Kmart’s Greensboro Distribution Center. The managers and supervisors on all three Receiving shifts reported to him. Cummings was a tall, muscular man in his mid-thirties who had previously held management positions at Walmart and Family Dollar warehouses.

Receiving was an enormous department where trucks unloaded inventory from countless vendors. Boxes were assigned a bar code, transported by forklift to storage modules, and eventually placed on a network of conveyor belts leading to the Shipping Department for delivery to Kmart retailers.

Following a vicious three-year fight, UNITE had negotiated a first contract in 1996 for the 700 warehouse employees. The following year, I was assigned to service Local 2603 and facilitate an internal rebuild.

Every month, I presented a dozen third-step grievances to management, several of which involved issues in Receiving and bore John Cumming’s signature on the second-step denial. Though a few cases lacked merit, the majority of grievances denied by Cummings were ultimately resolved in the union’s favor.

I informed the plant manager and human resource director that Cummings simply refused to recognize the contract and ran his department as if still at a nonunion facility. In the process he was wasting the company’s time and resources resolving issues that should never have arisen, compared with managers who honored the agreement signed by their superiors. I received the stereotypical company response, “We appreciate your input and will look into this.” Cummings had exemplary productivity ratings to his credit, which supersedes the wellbeing of employees at any plant.

“The man treats us all like garbage…like we’re nothing, especially if we’re Black...”

On a Sunday afternoon in April, 2000, the Greensboro union hall was packed with Local 2603 members. The primary subject on their minds was John Cummings.

“The man treats us all like garbage…like we’re nothing, especially if we’re Black,” exclaimed a tall, lanky middle-aged man wearing work overalls. He changes the damn system for handling freight every day and then writes us up if we don’t catch on quick enough. People are afraid to ask questions because he just snarls at them like they’re idiots and tells them to get back to work. At the same time he’s making things more confusing, he keeps raising the production standards and writing us up if we don’t meet them.”

“Does he ever use racial slurs when insulting people?” I asked.

“No.  He isn’t that stupid, but when he’s screaming at you with his face only a few inches from yours, you can feel what he’s thinking. I grew up in the Carolinas and recognize racism. John Cummings is the damn redneck of the year.”

“So, what’s the union gonna do about it?” shouted a young woman before being called upon.

“Look, I’ve already been complaining to the plant manager and HR about him, but it clearly isn’t doing any good. I’m gonna need a lot more information before I can answer your question.”

“John also hates the union,” said Byrd Johnson, the Receiving Department shop steward on first shift. I overheard him discussing it with a couple of supervisors. He also talks shit about the union to new hires but none of them will come forward because they’re still on probation.”

“I’ve got a question,” said local 2603 President Calvin Miller, who worked in Skilled Maintenance. “Isn’t there some sort of company rule against members of management fraternizing?”

“Yes, there is. Why?”

“Because when I’m over in Receiving doing repairs, I keep hearing about how John Cummings is gettin’ it on with a supervisor named Kim Shaw. Everybody seems to know about it. I hear tell they’re both married.”

“You’ve got my attention with this. But it will take a lot of hard work to prove it. Remember, this won’t be a legal case. It doesn’t violate any laws for John and Kim to have an affair…only a company rule. John and Kim will indignantly deny it and that’s where things will end, unless we can bury them under a mountain of evidence so convincing it can’t be ignored. But tell me a little more about Kim.”

“She was brought in as a temp to work in Receiving last year. Within a couple of months she was hired as a full time employee, which is much quicker than usually happens with temps. Several months late, she was promoted to supervisor.”

“That sounds very suspicious but John obviously justified it to corporate by saying what a great employee she was,” I responded and then faced the group.

“It’s very clear that John Cummings is the union’s public enemy number one. From this moment on, he’s in my gun sights. But I need you to provide the ammunition. Management takes notes on us all the time. You each have personnel files filled with these notes. It’s time to turn the tables and start taking notes on them, especially notes that document John’s relationship with Kim.

“From now on, no one comes to work without a notepad. We need specific incidents you personally observed, including date, time and location. Repeating what someone else told you is just hearsay. You’ll have to get that person to stand up and provide their own account. All of these statements have to be signed or they’ll be worthless. Don’t worry; this won’t involve sticking your neck out. I plan to present everything at the same time and only if I get a couple of dozen witnesses. We have to be discreet during our investigation. Only discuss this with union members who don’t have a big mouth. If word gets back to John, he’ll become more careful and the opportunity will be lost. We need him to remain so smug and confident that he never sees this coming.

“I want to make one thing clear though. I don’t give a damn about who sleeps with who. Life is hard enough and if someone finds a situation that can bring them some happiness, it’s understandable if they go for it. What offends me is John’s hypocrisy. He’s a stickler for the rules and enjoys using them to lean on people, but at the same time he’s the worst rule-breaker in the whole warehouse.

“But I do have one question. Why would a smart guy like John be so indiscreet that all of you know about this?”

“An essential attribute of the well-rounded union organizer is being a skilled assassin. Over time, I’ve terminated the careers of several dozen abusive anti-union members of management, from the shop floor to corporate headquarters. ”

Byrd again raised his hand. “Because he’s a bully who enjoys throwing his weight around and thinks he’s untouchable. I once heard him say, ‘I ain’t afraid of nothing. I ain’t even afraid of the devil himself.’’’

An essential attribute of the well-rounded union organizer is being a skilled assassin. Over time, I’ve terminated the careers of several dozen abusive anti-union members of management, from the shop floor to corporate headquarters. Moving with the grace of a leopard, one must cut the target out from the herd, and turn the person from a company asset into a liability. The corporate culture is without loyalty and one serious failure or indiscretion can overshadow twenty years of exemplary service. An arrogant individual who experienced themselves as invincible for decades suddenly wakes up alone with no one to watch their back.

A friend once inquired about my ethics and I told her, “I don’t have any ethics…except take care of my people by any means necessary.” I set out to make John Cummings the next notch on my gun.

Executing the Plan

I toured the distribution center every week, walking the floor on all three shifts. Within a month, I’d collected a small stack of handwritten statements documenting John’s relationship with Kim. We were off to a good start but it wasn’t enough. The evidence, though compelling, was all circumstantial and subject to alternate interpretations. The only solution was a volume of eyewitness accounts sufficient to negate all attempts at justification. When I encountered John Cummings I always approached him in a businesslike manner. “Nice to see you again,” I’d say, shaking his hand and squeezing it a bit tighter than he did mine while staring into his eyes. It was disconcerting to a man who understood only hostility and fear, and I enjoyed toying with him as he did the workers.

On June 12, the first shift Receiving manager took FMLA leave. Almeta Hines was a black woman who was sympathetic to the union and refused to participate in John’s anti-union agenda. Kim was immediately promoted to first shift manager in her absence. It was supposedly temporary but Almeta suspected otherwise and began consulting with me off-the-record, soon evolving into my mole within Kmart management. She provided details of John and Kim’s clandestine routine that allowed me to plant witnesses in the right places at the right time. My pile of statements began to mushroom but I continued to bide my time until the perfect moment presented itself.

Almeta had overheard John Cummings complaining about her and the union with supervisors, declaring, “We have a union sympathizer among us. The best way to get rid of them is to cut off their head.” On another occasion, he’d offered a $500 reward to anyone who helped get her fired.

During early August, Human Resources contacted Almeta at home, saying neither their office nor the plant manager had received her FMLA documentation. The health care provider had sent the forms to John Cummings who failed to pass them on. Almeta was able to provide the paperwork herself but no action was taken against Cummings.

On September 4, Almeta returned to work and discovered she’d been permanently demoted to a supervisor on third shift while Kim remained in her former position―a blatant violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act. She called me that evening asking for help. In addition to being displaced, remaining on the graveyard shift would force her to resign because of childcare responsibilities.

I promised to file charges with the EEOC, not only for FMLA violations but for discrimination, based on the preferential treatment afforded to Kim because of her race and providing sexual favors. I told Almeta to write statements to support both cases. Her testimony regarding discrimination included the following allegation:

“I believe that Kim Shaw was promoted to fill my position because she is romantically involved with John Cummings, who is operations manager for the Receiving Department, and because she is white. I am a Black woman and am not romantically involved with John Cummings.

“I was in the highly unusual position of representing a member of management who under normal circumstances would have been forced to hire a lawyer. But as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Besides, she was a really decent person whose rights had been violated in the most heinous fashion.”

Through Almeta’s assistance and the hard work of union activists, I accumulated over thirty handwritten witness statements. Most were misspelled and a bit incoherent in placers, but the essential details came across clearly:

John and Kim took lunch together daily, either in the canteen or a conference room. On occasion they left the building in John’s car for an extended break and were observed holding hands in restaurants. Kim was allowed to leave work early or otherwise rearrange her schedule to accommodate their relationship. She accompanied John on out-of-town business trips that otherwise didn’t involve her. Kim brazenly bragged to workers, “So long as John is at Kmart, I’ll be first shift Receiving manager forever and ever and ever.”

My charges were filed with the EEOC on September 15. I waited a week for the cases to reach the agency and then be forwarded to Kmart. The time to strike was finally at hand and I considered my options. Starting with local management would only allow them to circle the wagons around one of their own. But I had developed a good working relationship with Niels Hansen, the corporate human resources attorney.

Niels was the perfect recipient for my presentation. He tough bargained but wasn’t anti-union, and was an over-zealous boy scout when it came to enforcing Kmart’s rules.

I recalled an incident when a worker came across an isolated lollipop lying in an aisle between storage modules. It had probably fallen from a box on the overhead conveyor belt. He casually picked it up, put it in his mouth and continued walking to his assignment. The next day he was fired for theft of company property. When I discussed the absurdity of this discipline with Niels he became indignant. “I don’t care if it’s the theft of a car or a lollipop. It’s still stealing! We have no tolerance for that!”

I referred to the case as grand theft lollipop and filed for arbitration but the disgusted worker found another job and told me to drop it. However, this side of Niel’s personality could now be turned to the union’s advantage. It was easy to imagine how he’d react to John Cumming’s behavior.

I called the attorney on September 22, right after he returned from lunch. “I’ve got something a bit sensitive and awkward to discuss with you,” I began. “I’m familiar with your rule against management fraternizing, and believe I have an obligation to inform you that Operations Manager John Cummings is having a blatantly public affair with one of his supervisors. We’ve worked well together for several years and I felt it best to bring this directly to your attention, so you could handle the matter with discretion and avoid as much embarrassment to the company as possible. I’m going to fax you thirty-four employee statements documenting the relationship.” I shared Almeta’s experience and suggested Niels call her.

The lawyer overflowed with gratitude at the way in which the matter was being addressed and promised to carefully review my documents.

The following week, Byrd Johnson called my cell phone as I drove between locals. “John Cummings been fired. He’s gone! Out the door! We done it!” He was too exuberant to stop talking. “We don’t know yet who’s gonna replace him, but whoever it is, things can only get better...”

Kim was also terminated and Almeta returned to her rightful job.

At the next union meeting I was straight-up with folks about how I’d set things in motion by talking privately with the company lawyer. I summed up the encounter by saying: “Perhaps the greatest victory is getting your opponent to do your bidding, believing all the while that you’re doing him a favor.

Phil Cohen spent 30 years in the field as Special Projects Coordinator for Workers United/SEIU, and specialized in defeating professional union busters.  He’s the author of Fighting Union Busters in a Carolina Carpet Mill and The Jackson Project: War in the American Workplace.