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Fresh & Easy CEO Tackles Labor Questions

LOS ANGELES — It's up to the workers, not management, whether or not employees at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets want to join a union, Tim Mason, president and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based division of Tesco, said Tuesday at a luncheon meeting of Town Hall Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES — It's up to the workers, not management, whether or not employees at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market want to join a union, Tim Mason, president and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based division of Tesco, said Tuesday at a luncheon meeting of Town Hall Los Angeles.

“This is not a management issue,” he told a clergyman who asked a question.“You're talking to the wrong person. It's the staff at the stores that decides.

“Some staff members came to the company and asked us to recognize the union, and we told them to put it to a secret ballot. But it never went to a vote because they know that in secrecy, the effort had no chance. They represented the views of a small minority of people, not the majority.”

The clergyman, Rabbi Jonathan Klein — who told SN he represented Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE — also charged that Fresh & Easy has been found guilty of several unfair labor practices and that it had turned down opportunities to speak with religious leaders.

“No one can refuse to meet with religious leaders,” Mason responded, “but that's how it sounds when you ask the question as you do.”

Regarding unfair labor practices, Mason said, “We do face an awful lot of unfair labor practice charges, as have others who have walked this path before.But on every matter of fact and procedure, a judge found we had acted according to law. However, in a limited number of cases that involved 'he said/she said' situations, we lost, and we have learned from that and moved on.”

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