Judge: Kentucky distillery influenced union vote with free bottles of bourbon
Woodford Reserve Distillery and parent Brown-Forman have been ordered to recognize and bargain with a Teamsters affiliate after a judge found that the distillery unfairly influenced a 2022 unionization vote by handing out bottles of premium bourbon and pay bumps.
The National Labor Relations Board judge found that Louisville-based Brown-Forman “committed serious violations” of labor law.
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Just ahead of a November 2022 vote, the Versailles distillery announced an across-the-board wage increase, changes to merit raise eligibility and vacation policies and gave employees $30 bottles of Woodford Reserve Double Oaked.
Before the free bourbon and benefits were announced, a majority of the 60 employees at the Kentucky distillery unit involved were leaning toward authorizing the unionization to increase wages, which managers knew, according to the NLRB.
But at the election — held a week after Woodford Reserve gave each employee a bottle of bourbon for exceeding an unannounced multi-month production goal — the union inexplicably lost the election, according to the NLRB.
Joe B. Lance, vice president of Teamsters Local 651 and the lead organizer of the campaign, said the ruling is historic, in that it is one of the first to implement a new legal standard that allows the union to skip re-running the election and go straight to bargaining.
His goal, he said, is to catch the Versailles distillery employees up to the pay scale he’s found at other Brown-Forman and Woodford County distilleries including Wild Turkey and Four Roses.
“The ultimate goal is to make better lives for the people,” Vance said. “We’re feeding our families too.”
What Brown-Forman says
The distillery claimed the actions were for legitimate business reasons “unrelated to the organizing campaign or the pending election.” But in an April 8 decision, the judge found Woodford Reserve “engaged in violative and objectionable conduct” and ordered the distiller to “recognize and bargain with the union as the chosen representative of the employees.”
Brown-Forman and Woodford Reserve Distillery spokeswoman Elizabeth Conway said in a statement on April 10 that they “are reviewing the administrative law judge’s decision and determining our next steps based on the ruling.”
Brown-Forman could appeal the decision.
According to the judge’s decision, the distillery often gave employees bottles of bourbon for occasions such as the Kentucky Derby or when specific goals were hit but the targets were announced in advance. However, the November 2022 bottles appeared to be the idea of an upper-level manager who emailed “it may not be a bad time to gift all our employees a nice bottle like we have done a few times before,” according to the decision.
Brown-Forman said the distribution was “solely in recognition of them achieving 5 consecutive months” of productivity records between May and September. However employees had not been notified in advance of a specific goal as an incentive, making the timing suspect, the judge said.
The ruling does not impact Brown-Forman employees outside the Versailles production unit; some other Brown-Forman plants, including the Louisville plant, are already unionized.
The decision comes as Kentucky is seeing an uptick in unionization efforts, including at the Georgetown Toyota plant which the United Auto Workers have targeted for a campaign.
