Serious labor disputes plage Yale-owned mall

While Yale's many campus labor problems have been well documented, a less-publicized, but just as heated labor dispute is brewing on Yale property in Queens, New York.

The Marx Realty and Improvement Company, led by Yale alum Leonard Marx, SY '54, manages and operates the Yale-owned Douglaston Plaza shopping center. His company currently faces two charges of labor law violations brought by former Douglaston Plaza security officers. Both cases are currently in trial--one is in appeals before the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board in Washington.

The labor practices of the company have union security workers furious over their treatment in contract negotiaions last August which ended in a lockout of the employees, according to Curtis Truehart, President of the International Brotherhood of Security Workers and Security Guards Union. He claims that the company was not bargaining in good faith throughout the negotiations. "Our collective bargaining rights were never even discussed," Truehart said.

Marx Realty wanted the unions workers to compete with County Security, a private subcontractor which according to Truehart pays its employees minimum wage without benefits. The cost to Marx Realty of employing the union guards would be much higher, since many of them had been working at the mall for over ten years, and had accumulated medical and other benefits.

When negotiations reached an impasse the security workers were locked out of the mall. "[The security officers] showed up for their shift, and were told that their services were no longer needed," former guard Richard Elias said.

Truehart calls the lockout a violation of a "no strike, no lockout" clause in the union workers' contract. He and Elias also claimed that some workers have not yet received severance pay required from the company by contract.

Attorney for Marx Realty Ed Schwartz confirmed that the original force was fired for what he labeled "economic reasons." Mall security is now handled by the lower cost County Security. In addition, Schwartz maintained that the contract that contained the "no strike, no lockout" and severance pay clauses had expired by the time negotiations took place.

In response to the officers' dismissal Truehart filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the company had engaged in "surface bargaining" and had threatened security officers with loss of employment. In addition, Truehart, in his complaint, accused Marx Realty of "unilaterally subcontracting in the absence of a good faith bargaining impasse." Truehart claimed that Marx Realty refused to negotiate out of "a vendetta against the union workers," who had filed suit against the company over alleged discriminatory labor practices involving the company's profit sharing plan.

On September 19, NLRB Regional Director Daniel Silverman ruled that the workers' evidence was insufficient to prove wrongdoing on the part of Marx Realty. The case is now in appeal before the NLRB General Counsel in Washington. "The case is still in the prosecutorial phase," Silverman said.

The NLRB trial is not the only legal obstacle Marx Realty faces, however. Two years ago Security Officer Richard Elias had brought a complaint against Marx Realty before the NLRB, charging that they had suspended him unfairly "for [his] involvement in the [security guards'] union." The hearings resulted in an NLRB ruling in favor of Elias and a formal complaint against Marx Realty.

During the hearings on Elias' case, Marx Realty revealed that while all of their other employees were part of a company-wide profit sharing plan, the security workers at Douglaston Plaza were not. Truehart said that the security workers were completely unaware of this profit sharing plan, and had established a 401K retirement benefits plan unnecessarily as a result. Marx Realty justified this shielding of the security workers from the plan by claiming that the security guards were employees of Transcontinental Stores Inc., not Marx Realty.

However, Truehart calls Transcontinental "a dummy company run by the same people as Marx Realty," and claims that it was established specifically to keep the security workers from participating in the profit sharing plan. As a result, Elias and the security officers have filed charges of discriminatory labor practices against Marx Realty. The trial is currently underway.

Schwartz denies any wrongdoing on Marx Realty's part. "It was never intended that the security officers be part of that plan," Schwartz said. "We deny all the charges and expect to prevail." Schwartz also points out that the company had contributed to a pension plan for the security workers. "The security people who were under the union had a retirement plan," he said, "they can't double-dip."

According to Truehart, his repeated requests to Yale Director of Investments Ellen Shuman to intervene in both these disputes have gone unanswered. Shuman declined to comment on the Douglaston labor dispute.

While Yale is in frequent contact with Marx Realty about the mall, it is unclear what Yale's involvement in the two legal disputes will be.

Elias also called on Yale to stop these "heinous" circumstances. "Yale can't always stay behind their curtain and not be responsible," he said.

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