Union Withdraws Marsh Election

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has withdrawn its petition for an election to organize the 44 associates at a Marsh supermarket in Beech Grove, Ind., the Indianapolis-based grocer said in statement released late Thursday.

The vote, scheduled for Friday, has been canceled. None of the associates at Marsh’s 100-plus stores are unionized.

“The union is claiming that we committed unfair labor practices in the store in order to thwart a fair and free election, which we vehemently deny,” said Dave Redden, Marsh executive VP of human resources. “While we do not comment on current litigation, we believe the untrue statements and charges by the union are an effort to cover up the real failure of the union to entice our associates to vote for their representation.”

An e-mail sent to the union seeking comment was not returned by press time.

UFCW Local 700 has filed two complaints against Marsh with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging unlawful disciplining of employees, including a 20-year company veteran whom the union claims was disciplined after openly expressing support for organizing a labor union in his store.

“Once more, our associates did not see the benefit in being unionized as in their best long term interest,” Redden said. “We believe this clearly illustrates that the majority of our associates at the Beech Grove store support Marsh and are comfortable communicating directly with Marsh management rather than through a third party. Furthermore, it shows that our associates understand that significant progress has been achieved since 2006 as a result of focused initiatives and improvements we’ve implemented to protect the jobs of nearly 8,000 workers. Marsh today is a more financially stable and healthy company that’s poised for future growth that will continue to benefit our associates.”

Florida-based Sun Capital purchased Marsh Supermarkets in 2006.