At Etown, layoffs hit 13 of the 36 customer service workers who were involved in the unionization effort there. In the Webvan case, union officials accuse the company of prohibiting workers from discussing issues, seeking support of a union, or using company e-mail to pass information about unions. Rich Hedges, spokesman for both UFCW locals, said the UFCW and Teamsters have filed charges with the NLRB on behalf of Webvan workers. Webvan has not been contacted by the NLRB, Grebey said. Webvan workers have already rejected the union at the company's Oakland, Calif.-based distribution facility, Grebey said.
Employees understand the company is under pressure to band together to stay in business.
United we survive and divided we fall. Webvan, which has yet to make a profit and has said it could run out of operating cash sometime in the fall, is fighting to survive. Like most dot-coms, its stock has lost more than 95 percent of its value in the last year, and its share price is scraping bottom. At the close of the markets Thursday, Webvan was trading at 47 cents a share. Hedges, who was handing out pro-union leaflets at Webvan's Oakland facility on Friday, predicted that Webvan workers will unionize by the end of the year.