Court orders Goya (largest Hispanic-owned food company in the US) to negotiate with union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5728093.html

April 24, 2008, 3:18PM

ATLANTA — A federal appeals court has ruled that Goya Foods, which bills itself as the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States, must negotiate with a union that won an election to bargain for its workers at a Miami warehouse.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion filed Thursday, said Goya must comply with an Aug. 30, 2006 order by the National Labor Relations Board to negotiate with Unite Now.

The court rejected Goya's contention that because of a seven-year delay since the initial vote among the warehouse workers to authorize the union, and because of subsequent changes in policies, the employees and management, the case should be returned to the NLRB to assess whether to change the order.

Unite Now claimed that Goya had discriminated against employees trying to unionize and refused to bargain with the union.

"Although the board's delay in ruling in this case is of considerable concern, the peculiar posture of this case and the particularly egregious nature of Goya's unfair labor practices persuade us that enforcement of the board's order should not be denied in this case," said the opinion by Circuit Judges R. Lanier Anderson and Rosemary Barkett and U.S. District Judge David G. Trager of New York.