"Let there be no doubt the company's vigorous effort to de-unionize even includes disdainful violation of USA laws protecting workers from harassment," said Joe Drexler, PACE director of Special Projects. "Our union allies at the company's operations in England and France can now see the stark contrast with the high-road industrial relations it practices closer to home." "The issuance of this complaint by the Board puts the authority of the USA government behind the charges made by PACE and the Sylacauga employees beginning last September," said Attorney Robert Weaver of Nakamura, Quinn & Walls, Birmingham, Ala., who filed the charges on behalf of PACE. "For months the company has said there was nothing to the charges, and more recently that the charges were 'insignificant.' The Board's investigation and this complaint show just how high up the corporate ladder the violations go."

Dated February 16, the NLRB complaint names ECCA Vice President Ray Barker, Sylacauga Plant Manager Randy Sandrik and five other managers. The NLRB alleges that Barker instructed supervisors to maintain records of employees' union sentiments; that Sandrik threatened employees who supported union organizing efforts and that two supervisors interrogated employees about their union activities. All are violations of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, which prohibits employer interference, restraint or coercion of employees exercising their rights to organize.

ECCA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Imerys USA, Inc., formed by the 1999 merger of Imetal and English China Clays, Inc. Prior to the merger, Imetal and ECC operated neighboring plants in Sylacauga, with the Imetal facility represented by PACE. On the effective date of the companies' merger Imerys withdrew recognition from PACE and repudiated the labor contract signed by Imetal and PACE.

PACE and the Brussels-based International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine & General Workers' Unions (ICEM) are building a support network of ICEM- affiliated unions at Imerys plants in France, the UK and Belgium. Letters to the company and media outreach accuse the company's USA branch of hiring professional union busters in an aggressive drive against PACE efforts to organize workers in Alabama and elsewhere in the southeastern USA.

Aspects of the anti-union campaign include obligatory meetings at which employees are shown anti-union videos, while not permitted to ask questions. In a recent trip to discuss the situation with European labor leaders, Sylacauga worker Keith Fulbright said the videos, the interrogation and company threats to cut wages and remove benefits have many workers "scared to death."

"Our people are bludgeoned with anti-union messages here, while in Europe the company speaks of improving its labor relations," Drexler said. "Our allies there are helping us bring the message to Imerys headquarters that this contradiction is simply unacceptable."

Imerys is based in Paris and employs 10,000 worldwide in ceramics and materials production.