Giant Eagle Worker Talks Union Inside Store, Gets Arrested.

"HOMESTEAD, Pa. -- The Giant Eagle grocery store at the Homestead Waterfront is at the center of a union dispute after a company employee's arrest on a charge of trespassing.

"I feel vindicated," Debbie Wieloch said after being cleared of all charges Tuesday. "It tells me Giant Eagle knew they were wrong and did that to silence me, and they had no right to do that."

Wieloch, who works at Giant Eagle Market District in Shadyside, was arrested in September when she went to the Waterfront store on her day off and talked with co-workers about union issues and refused a request to leave the building.

Channel 4 Action News reporter Bob Mayo reported that District Judge Thomas Torkowsky found Wieloch not guilty at the woman's preliminary hearing on Tuesday morning.

Before the hearing started, Wieloch told Mayo, "I do believe that I have the right to discuss union matters with union employees on my own time, as long as I am not pulling them off of their job. I was very careful not to do that. Everyone I spoke to was on a break or a lunch."

Wieloch said the union discussions happened in the Waterfront store's cafe area -- which she said is a public area -- and not in the store aisles."

read more at:

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/24874286/detail.html

Thanks for posting.

K&R!

OS

Giant Eagle is a huge employer in this region...but they also are not the only supermarket. They cannot afford to lose union customers!

:dem:

how strong unions are in Western Pa.


My Dad was in a union at the Steel Plant and My wife's mother belong to a union when she worked.

Here's a pretty interesting story:

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/homestead_strike.cfm

:hi:

I don't want to support a store that doesn't support its workers. Ms Wieloch is a hero to me..

There always seems to be some problem!