In a continuing labor relations saga between the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and OK Foods, a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer has recommended a union vote be "set aside" and employees be allowed another vote.

In a continuing labor relations saga between the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and OK Foods, a National Labor Relations Board hearing officer has recommended a union vote be "set aside" and employees be allowed another vote.

However, with insufficient evidence that OK Foods coerced employees at its Heavener plant to not join the union, all four specific objections by the union were overruled by the reviewing officer.

The curvy legal plot stems from complaints by employees of not receiving a 90-day evaluation raise, and the abrupt late-February resignation of former CEO Paul Fox. The company’s new CEO, Trent Goins, faced complaints that dozens of employees in Heavener were owed back pay because a manager had not conducted evaluations for pay increases more than three months over the 90-day expected period.

Goins, whose grandfather founded the 80-year-old company that was purchased in 2011 by Mexico-based Industrias Bochaco, is quoted as testifying that he first learned about the issue of back pay checks for the failed 90-day-evaluation raises only two to three weeks into the new job. Goins’ previous post was senior vice president of sales and marketing and the back pay issue was "unfamiliar territory" he testified.

His father, Randy Goins, was also a CEO of OK Foods.

A May 1 vote to unionize was narrowly defeated.

At one point in April, Trent Goins catered a pizza lunch to hear employee objections, but his legal counsel had advised him that any payment to unit employees might be viewed as an "impermissible bribe." At that point Goins "decided to delay the payment to the recently discovered unit employees until after the election."

Goins resolved at least one complaint, that no nurse was on duty on weekends, as part of his move to "do the right thing."

In the 18-page report from National Labor Relations Board Hearing Officer Michael E. Werner, Goins’ other actions were said to "ring hollow."

"Based on the record, I am convinced that the Employer (OK Foods) ignored its employees’ complaints until the Petitioner (the union) began its organizing efforts and then sought to resolve the matter by implementing the wage increases and offering unit employees retroactive pay," Werner writes.

Werner went on to state that despite these conclusions regarding the OK Foods’ motivation, he "did not find the actions constitute objectionable conduct," referring to previous labor relations cases that called the subtle quid pro quo actions a fist in a velvet glove.

Labor elections "are not lightly set aside," Werner begins the report stating. Under the board’s test the issue is not whether a party’s conduct in fact coerced employees, but whether the party’s misconduct reasonably tended to interfere with the employee’s free and uncoerced choice in the election, according to the document.

In response to the labor board’s decision to set aside the May 1 election, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1000 stated it "strongly endorses the Board’s call for a new union election."

"I’m pleased the Board did the right thing for these workers," said UFCW Local 1000 President Ricky Burris. "The Board ruled definitively that OK Foods interfered with these employees’ free choice in organizing a union. Why is this company so scared of its workers having a fair vote without lies and coercion? I want to see a re-vote scheduled as soon as possible."

Anthony Elmo, communications and political director organizer for the UFCW Local 1000, said the OK Foods employees "took a bold stand in fighting their case in front of the NLRB" by standing in court in front of their employer and that they "told a true story about false promises their CEO made to try to defeat the union."

UFCW Local 1000, which represents almost 10,000 workers across Oklahoma and north Texas, has been organizing with OK Foods workers since December 2013.

"Despite the fact that the National Labor and Relations Board’s hearing officer overruled all of the specific objections made against OK Foods by the union, and even held that the company didn’t threaten, coerce or intimidate anyone, the officer still believed a new election is warranted," Trent Goins stated in a news release. "Only when you are up against a labor union board can a company win all the objections yet still have to have another election simply because the outcome didn’t go the union’s way."

The CEO went on to say that the company would "continue to stand with and support its 55 maintenance and refrigeration employees in Heavener who voted against the union and against organizing this past May."

"While this decision is a setback for our employees, we fully expect them to once again unite and vote against the union," Trent Goins added.