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By BRIAN MALINA; Times Leader Staff Writer
Friday, June 19, 1998 Page: 12B
TUNKHANNOCK- More than two years after he was fired from Mr. Z’s Food Mart
in Tunkhannock, Thomas Cahill can return to his job with full back pay, thanks
to a decision by the National Labor Relations Board.
Cahill was fired from his job as a night clerk at the food store in April
1995, just a few months after he started a push for workers to join the United
Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 1776.
In its decision, issued June 12, the three-member NLRB panel ruled that Mr.
Z’s wrongly dismissed Cahill because of his union activity.
The food chain, which is owned by the Sunbury-based Weis Markets chain,
claimed that Cahill was fired for threatening a supervisor and unsatisfactory
work, according to paperwork supplied by the NLRB. In its decision, the NLRB
said Mr. Z’s had no basis for the firing.
The NLRB also ruled that Mr. Z’s must offer Cahill his former job, or an
equivalent position, within 14 days. He also must be compensated for wages
lost after his dismissal. It is unclear how much Cahill will be awarded in
back pay.
“We haven’t seen the opinion yet, but our labor lawyers are reviewing it
very carefully,” Mr. Z’s spokesman Dennis Curtain said Thursday.
Curtain declined additional comment. Cahill, of Laceyville, did not return
a call for comment.
The ruling upheld a previous decision by an administrative law judge
stemming from a 1996 hearing on the matter. Weis Market appealed the ruling.
The NLRB’s recent ruling also upheld charges that Mr. Z’s violated labor
laws by threatening to close its Tunkhannock store if workers unionized. A
manager from the store offered employees a raise if they would not join the
union, the NLRB said.
“We are extremely pleased that we, once again, have achieved another legal
victory in our ongoing mission to obtain justice in this multiple unfair labor
practice decision against Weis Markets and Mr. Z’s Food Mart,” said Wendell
Young II, president of UFCW Local 1776, in a statement released Thursday.
Employees at Mr. Z’s stores in Tunkhannock, Plains Township and Scranton
are not unionized. But, according to the NLRB’s decision, Mr. Z’s management
cannot prevent