Biscuit World workers say no to 1st W.Va. fast-food union

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Workers at a West Virginia franchise of a regional fast-food restaurant on Tuesday rejected efforts to form a union that would have been the first its kind in West Virginia.

The effort was part of a larger national trend of organizing among retail and food service workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The mood was somber at the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 office in Charleston, where pro-union workers from the Tudor’s franchise in Elkview watched as a National Labor Relations Board official counted ballots over a Zoom call and anounced that employees had rejected the union by a vote of 7-5. Roughly two dozen people work at the franchise. Of the 20 workers eligible to vote, 14 did so. Two ballots were challenged and not counted.

“It’s disheartening,” said employee Cynthia Nicholson, who wore a UFCW Local scarf. “We’re going to keep fighting because you just cannot let this injustice go on. … That battle is not over yet.”

Relatively unknown outside the region, Tudor’s Biscuit World is a staple of West Virginia where diners can get made-from-scratch biscuits doused in gravy; country-fried steak and sandwiches including the Miner or the Mountaineer. Founded in Charleston in 1980, the chain now has more than 70 locations, mostly in West Virginia and in parts of neighboring states Ohio and Kentucky.

Some of the workers in Elkview, a mountain town of fewer than 2,000 people, decided to unionize because they said they were treated unfairly and have worked in unsafe conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among the employees’ allegations were that they were not informed when workers tested positive for COVID-19 and that they were asked to work long hours and at different store locations and then were reprimanded for working overtime.

The vice president of Tudor’s Biscuit World did not respond to a voicemail or text message from The Associated Press on Monday, and no one from the chain’s corporate offices responded to phone calls.

A representative of the company attending the Zoom call, Michael Moore, said he accepted the vote, as did the organizing director of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, Alan Hanson.

Employees sent in their ballots over the past few weeks before they were read Tuesday.