Employees at Hershey Chocolate of Virginia overwhelmingly, but perhaps predictably, voted down an effort to unionize the Augusta County plant.
Seventy-nine percent of the votes cast were against the union, according to a report in the News Leader published on Friday.
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union had been working with a group of employees on the unionization effort, which sought improved pay, benefits and working conditions at the plant, which has been in operation since 1982 and employs nearly 1,300 people.
The company responded to the drive with tactics straight out of Corporate America’s union-busting playbook, subjecting workers to captive-audience meetings led by the Labor Relations Institute, which launched an anti-union website, and by making “union-free” signs to distribute throughout the community.
The union drive also faced a huge political hurdle. Augusta County is bright red Republican in its voting history – giving Glenn Youngkin 77.9 percent of the vote in the November gubernatorial election, and Donald Trump 72.6 percent in the 2020 presidential election.
Conventional wisdom suggested ahead of the vote that Youngkin and Trump voters weren’t likely to also be union voters.
Turns out, that conventional wisdom was spot-on.
Story by Chris Graham
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