Brenntag Mid-South part of Brenntag North America staved off a challenge by The International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC)/UFCW at its Henderson, Kentucky headquarters. This is the second union election win for Brenntag in a three month span. Consequently, through it orchestration and management of both campaigns, NLRA wins the union election.
Never Too Big To Ask For Help
The Brenntag conglomerate is the world market leader in full-line chemical and ingredient distribution. The company boasts annual revenues of $13.2 Billion. Yet, when they received the union petition for Henderson, they built a team of outside experts to assist. They hired NLRA, who won the union election at their Georgetown, Kentucky terminal against the Teamsters, to fight this new threat at their flagship location.
Fox in the Henhouse
A weakness shared by many large corporations is the natural disconnect between upper management and the workforce. Certainly, this disconnect occurs in smaller companies as well. This disconnect becomes increasingly dangerous to the future of the company, and it must be diligently monitored and remedied.
At Henderson, the disconnect resulted in a rogue manager operating contrary to the company’s core values. In a word, he was mistreating the company’s most valuable of resources – its people. This manager turned in great “numbers” and by all normal metrics was an excellent manager. However, for all his strengths, he was a terrible leader of people, and it soon became obvious that he was the reason for the employees’ unhappiness.
Hard Decisions
NLRA built trust within the employee ranks to uncover this vital piece of information. Only a third-party could successfully glean the intel because the rogue manager had intimidated everyone to the point of fear. No one dared speak out against his conduct for fear of retaliation.
NLRA brought this information to the attention of Brenntag senior leadership. As a result, the CEO made the decision to terminate the rogue manager. The CEO engaged with the employees personally. He offered sincere apologies for his failures in monitoring the situation. Furthermore, he cancelled his attendance at all company meetings, events, and functions and committed to connecting with and assuring the employees of his dedication to the company’s core values.
The Union Would Not Give Up
After three weeks of NLRA’s campaign in Henderson, one of the suspected employee union organizers approached NLRA’s advocate and the CEO. He indicated that he was indeed one of the employee organizers, but after the rogue manager firing, NLRA’s information campaign, and the CEOs demonstrated commitment to the employees he was no longer interested in the union. He had spoken to others who helped the organizing campaign and they were going to approach the union leaders at a scheduled meeting that night and ask them to withdraw their National Labor Relations Board petition.
The next day, the same employee approached the CEO again and told him the union refused to withdraw. Several days later, the NLRB conducted a secret ballot election and the company received 70% of the votes for a victory. NLRA won the union election and Brenntag’s flagship plant remained union-free.
