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Community pickets support IGA
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By Don Shilling
Hubbard residents hope efforts to keep the store open aren’t too little, too late.
HUBBARD — Car horns blared as drivers passed a crowd of pickets supporting a future for the IGA grocery store here.
Signs held by shoppers, employees and plaza owners Wednesday read: Honk For Henry, for owner Henry Nemenz, and Save Our Store.
The group of more than 35 pickets lined the sidewalk of West Liberty Street to counter ongoing picketing efforts by union groups at the nonunion IGA store.
“We worked hard to get Henry interested in opening the store,” said Don McConnell, co-owner of McConnell’s Plaza.
McConnell noted that if IGA closes, there will be a huge gap in the plaza that isn’t likely to be filled.
“We are just happy to see people supporting Henry,” he said.
Pickets such as Mike Heinzer were just trying to return a favor of help to Nemenz.
“When he first came to this town, he called us, we didn’t call him,” said Heinzer, vice president of St. Vincent de Paul in Hubbard. He noted Nemenz’s willingness to donate food to a cause that supports 290 families.
“That’s the kind of man he is,” said Heinzer.
Henry Nemenz said the Liberty Street store is losing money and he intends to close it in a week or two unless the union pickets can be removed.
He said he has some hope that can be accomplished through legal proceedings.
Nemenz said it’s his understanding that Local 880 of the United Food and Commercial Workers can picket his store to inform the public — but they cannot to try to shut it down.
Steve Guerra, Nemenz’s lawyer, said he is researching the law and couldn’t comment further. Jeffrey Adler, Hubbard’s law director, said it would be up to Nemenz to pursue action against the union.
Tom Robertston, president of Cleveland-based Local 880, said the picketing is informational and shoppers are responding by staying away. He said the picketing is designed to advise the public the store is now nonunion.
The union used to represent workers when Patton’s Sparkle operated a store at that site. Nemenz opened his store in April 2007, about four months after the previous store closed.
Robertson said the union is upset because Nemenz refused to hire former Patton’s workers and brought in employees from outside Hubbard, so he could offer lower wages and benefits.
The union also has been picketing Nemenz’s Struthers IGA store for the past six months. Nemenz said the picketing has not affected sales at that store, which he has operated for 27 years.
Nemenz owns four IGA stores and eight Save-a-Lot stores.
Nemenz said most of the workers at the Patton’s store did not apply to work at his Hubbard store. Hundreds of people did turn in applications, and the best applicants were hired, he said. Among the 45 employees are eight people who had worked at the previous store, he said.
Nemenz added that four months elapsed between the Patton’s closing and his store opening, so perhaps the employees of the other store found other work. He also said 72 percent of the store’s workers live in Hubbard.
Nemenz said he is losing money on store operations because sales dropped 40 percent when pickets went up a year ago.
“They are picketing to put a man out of business,” said Hubbard Mayor Arthur Magee. If IGA closes, only one comparable store will remain in Hubbard. It’s important for Nemenz to stay in business for competition’s sake, the mayor said.
“The man came to town and didn’t know many people, but he never once hesitated to donate. He did things local people wouldn’t do,” said Magee of the eagerness of Nemenz to support the Hubbard community.
Residents are stepping up to repay Nemenz, but Magee said he hopes their efforts aren’t too late.
Nemenz noted the area has other nonunion grocery stores that aren’t being picketed. “Why are they singling me out?”
Robertson said the store’s operations have been hurt because Hubbard residents support the union’s cause. “They have refused to shop at a store that refuses to be fair to its longtime employees,” he said.
shilling@vindy.com