Bloomington workers say banjo maker wants to bust their union by moving to Oregon

Nechville Musical Products workers and their supporters picketed Feb. 15, a day after their boss changed the locks at the Bloomington shop.

Craftsmen who make banjos for Nechville Musical Products in Bloomington are on the picket line today after their boss asked them to load a U-Haul with tools and materials that he plans to relocate to Oregon, leaving local employees out of work.

The move comes less than a month after Nechville’s six workers – five full-time and one part-time – announced they had formed a union with the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Union members called the relocation plan retaliatory, saying ownership gave them no indication that it intended to move until Jan. 16, when they requested recognition of their union. In fact, they say owner Tom Nechville engaged with them in a robust annual planning session just one week earlier.

“The meeting before we told him about the union was a meeting about the goals for 2024 and how to organize ordering so that the finances would be in line,” John Potts, who has worked for Nechville the last five years, said. “Our goal for the year was going to be 180 banjos.”

Potts showed up to the Bloomington facility yesterday and turned over his keys to Nechville, who had already changed the locks. He and other workers were left wondering if they had been locked out of their jobs or laid off permanently.

“It’s not necessarily a lockout, but it is a situation I’m working on right now,” Nechville said when reached by phone yesterday at the Bloomington shop. He refused further comment and then ended the call.

Union members picketed Nechville Musical Products, located at 9700 Humboldt Ave. S., this morning. About a dozen community and labor supporters joined them on the line.

The Carpenters union filed charges of unfair labor practices against Nechville earlier this month. More are likely coming. Threats to close a facility or lay off workers if they form a union are considered forms of retaliation under federal labor law.

What’s more, the Carpenters contend that Nechville voluntarily recognized the union and has been illegally refusing to bargain since announcing plans to relocate. Workers said the owner granted recognition in messages about the timing of the Bloomington facility’s closure, which he changed from the end of February to this Friday.

“It’s all gone so chaotic,” Nechville worker Gareth Bly, who crafts banjo fretwork and neck shaping, said. “It’s difficult for any of us to parse what (Nechville’s) motivation is. Why does he think that we’re doing this, and what’s so bad about it?”

Bly and Potts said workers’ main goal in forming their union was making their careers more sustainable. Potts described most workers’ job descriptions as “nebulous,” and he attributed recent turnover in the shop to “some sort of falling out with Tom over control issues.”

Additionally, Nechville workers do not receive paid time off, paid holidays or health benefits. They only began earning paid sick time after Bloomington passed a municipal ordinance establishing the labor standard.

Bly said he first considered the idea of forming a union before his first Thanksgiving on staff, when he realized celebrating the holiday would take money off his paycheck. Nechville, according to Bly, later clawed back sick time that he and other workers had been told they’d earned before Bloomington’s ordinance took effect.

“That’s when we started saying this can’t stand,” he said.

Any hopes that Nechville would approach the union in a collaborative spirit – or share their enthusiasm for putting a union label on the brand’s banjos – have evaporated over the last month, leaving workers both disillusioned and worried about their economic security.

Potts, the kind of worker who Bly described as someone who “put himself out there for every single dirty job that had to get done,” said he “oscillates between being extremely sad and extremely angry.”

“I love my job,” Potts said. “I’ve had a great time in the past with Tom, hanging out at bluegrass festivals, taking various trips with him. Ultimately, I want Tom to be doing well. So it’s really sad to see him kind of dismiss our value and assume that we’re trying to hurt him.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor