In late 2009, the Coun­try Club made an offer to its work­ers that would raise their out-of-pock­et health­care costs to near­ly $637 a month — about 50 per­cent of an aver­age club worker’s income. Union mem­bers made a counter offer that would have saved the coun­try club mon­ey over the long run. The coun­try club reject­ed the offer, and work­ers were locked out on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2010.

After the last con­tract was nego­ti­at­ed with work­ers, Jim Clouser was appoint­ed to lead the club’s board of direc­tors. ​“It was clear from the begin­ning that he was intent on tak­ing on the union sim­ply because was ide­o­log­i­cal­ly opposed to unions,“ says coun­try club mem­ber Lar­ry Ferderber.

For more than 30 years, the Castle­wood Coun­try Club has had most­ly pos­i­tive labor rela­tions with its 60 or so food ser­vice work­ers, who are mem­bers of UNITE-HERE Local 2850. Work­ers at the coun­try club had always been paid decent wages and had decent health­care. The club’s mem­bers could afford to do it. A Castle­wood mem­ber­ship costs a one-time fee of $25,000, plus a $630 ​“gold mem­ber­ship” month­ly fee to stay in the club.

Typ­i­cal­ly, when a com­pa­ny busts a union it does it to save mon­ey. Yet as the case of the16-month-long lock­out at the Castle­wood Coun­try Club in Pleasan­ton, Calif., shows us, union­bust­ing often has very lit­tle to do with sav­ing mon­ey and every­thing to do with the pow­er boss­es wish to have over their workers.

Many sus­pect­ed that the coun­try club was not nego­ti­at­ing in good faith and management’s real goal was to pro­voke a lock­out so they could bust and severe­ly weak­en the union.

“Set­tling this dis­pute and pro­vid­ing afford­able health­care for our fam­i­lies would cost each mem­ber less than 30 cents a day — so why are we still fight­ing?” says Wei Ling Huber, pres­i­dent of Unite Here Local 2850, which rep­re­sents the locked-out workers.

After the lock­out began, accord­ing to UNITE HERE Local 2850 union orga­niz­er Sarah Norr, the work­ers were brought into a meet­ing with man­age­ment, which said the only way the union work­ers could return is if they agreed to decer­ti­fy the union. The union work­ers, of course, refused to do that and the com­pa­ny hired scabs to take their jobs.

Accord­ing to union orga­niz­ers, the com­pa­ny has refused to so far nego­ti­ate in good faith. The union has since filed unfair labor prac­tices with the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board claim­ing that the coun­try club is try­ing to per­ma­nent­ly replace work­ers, which is ille­gal dur­ing a lockout.

The com­pa­ny has spent a tremen­dous amount of extra mon­ey due to the labor dis­pute. Accord­ing to inter­nal doc­u­ments, the com­pa­ny has spent at least $340,000 on legal expens­es relat­ed to the lock­out. Also, accord­ing to UNITE HERE orga­niz­er Sarah Norr, two golf tour­na­ments have can­celled tour­na­ments thus far and anoth­er 11 golf tour­na­ments have indi­cat­ed that they will not return this year to hold tour­na­ments. All this costs the coun­try club expect­ed revenue.

“They didn’t real­ize who they were pick­ing a fight with, that [work­ers] had an orga­ni­za­tion behind them that would fight for them,” says Fer­der­ber. ​“As a result, the coun­try club has gone into mas­sive amount of debts fight­ing this union.”

“There is a clear cri­sis of con­science here,” says locked-out jan­i­tor Fran­cis­ca Car­ran­za. ​“The club is spend­ing more mon­ey lock­ing us out, when it could save mon­ey with our pro­posed contract.”

Castlewood’s Board of Direc­tors have tried to keep the esca­lat­ing costs secret from the rest of the club’s 800 mem­bers. ​“When I speak up about the mat­ter, the Board of Direc­tors always tries to keep it hush. They have even threat­ened to kick me out of the club for speak­ing up about it,” Fer­der­ber says.

Despite the appar­ent ded­i­ca­tion of Castle­wood man­age­ment to bust their union, work­ers say they are not deterred. Last week, they engaged in mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to pre­vent golfers from play­ing in the annu­al Castle­wood Coun­try Club Golf Tour­na­ment. Two dozen union mem­bers and their sup­port­ers were arrest­ed for block­ing traf­fic from enter­ing the coun­try club.

“We have per­sist­ed — we aren’t going any­where,” said Wei-Ling Huber, pres­i­dent of Local 2850. ​“We are going to go back, we are going to go back union, and we are going to go back with a contract.”