PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Park Slope Food Coop workers hoping to unionize were outraged this week when their managers reached a settlement with the federal labor board but still refused to sign a document promising to stay neutral while they organize.

The coop was required to post signs around the Union Street building this week outlining workers' rights to unionize after the National Labor Relations Board decided a complaint that they were threatening union-backing staff had standing, union officials told Patch. The settlement with the NLRB comes after the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is helping coop employees, asked the coop to sign a neutrality agreement in the spring.

The coop refused then to sign the agreement and still have not done so, angering members who showed up to see the signs posted around coop. Those members, who support the full-time employees union efforts, gathered outside the coop Friday to get signatures on a petition they started back in June to ask the coop to sign the agreement. "The neutrality agreement was not signed at the time and (workers) are still waiting for that to be signed," Chelsea Connor, a representative with RWDSU told Patch. "Instead, what happened is, coop management took retaliatory measures against workers. This neutrality agreement is needed more than ever."

The notices required in the NLRB settlement list workers rights to "form, join or assist a union" and include several statements about how the coop will not "interfere, restrain or coerce" members in exercising those rights. Connor said that these statements are essentially the minimum the coop is required to follow by law. A neutrality agreement, on the other hand, goes above just the legal requirements and promises neutrality while also outlining a process for how a union vote can take place.

The fact that the NLRB found that the coop already violated the labor laws posted in the signs makes the agreement even more necessary, she said.

"This is a perfect case of why neutrality is needed and something that goes beyond the law," Connor said.



The NLRB complaint, which Patch obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, outlined nearly a dozen instances where staff at the coop felt they were retaliated against for showing support for the union. The coop managers said before the NLRB settlement that they believed these claims would be disproved and contended that they have supported members rights to join a union. They did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.