In a win for Teamsters at Hood River Distillers, a federal appeals court sided with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) March 7.
The NLRB found that Hood River Distillers violated the National Labor Relations Act in 2020 when it permanently replaced workers who took part in an unfair labor practice strike, and earlier when it unilaterally changed employment terms even though the two sides had not reached an impasse in bargaining. In 2021, an NLRB administrative law judge ordered the distillery to reinstate the union workers and give them back pay. Hood River Distillers appealed that order to the NLRB in Washington, D.C., which heard the case in 2023 and upheld the judge’s ruling. Hood River Distillers then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where a three-judge panel in the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the company’s arguments in a 2-1 decision.
“They’ve tried to fight this at every level,” Teamsters Local 670 secretary-treasurer Michael Beranbaum told the Labor Press. “This just — again — vindicates our position.”
Most of the 25 workers who went on strike in 2020 are back on the job, but none have received back pay.
Hood River Distillers workers went on strike in May 2020 after the company decided on its own that negotiations had reached an impasse. Because the workers were striking to protest an unfair labor practice, not over an economic grievance, the company was prohibited under U.S. labor law from permanently replacing them. The company’s rejection of the union’s late August 2020 unconditional offer to return to work was deemed a violation of the National Labor Relations Act by the NLRB and appellate court. But the company did place the striking workers on a preferential rehiring list, and it started bringing back those workers in the fall.
Hood River Distillers now owes those workers pay for time before they were called back into work — plus interest for the four years that have passed without payment.
“They’re willing to put money in attorneys and law firms and legal challenges, and not necessarily back into the pockets of their employees,” Beranbaum said.
Local 670 and Hood River Distillers have negotiated two contracts since the strike.
A 2021 attempt to decertify the union was blocked by the NLRB because a majority of the voters were temporary workers brought on during the strike. When Hood River Distillers rehired strikers, it didn’t get rid of the replacement workers they’d hired during the strike.
As of March 2025, Beranbaum said all eligible workers are full members of the union. Even strike replacement workers who have stayed on have chosen to become full dues-paying members, Beranbaum said.
Why distillery workers struck
When negotiations on a new contract began in January 2019, Hood River Distillers had been paying in full for workers’ health insurance through a union-sponsored benefit trust. Hood River proposed a three-year wage freeze, a different health plan, and the right to change its 401(k) match. The union agreed to a wage freeze in exchange for maintaining health and retirement benefits and the two seemed to have reached a deal in June 2019, but the company’s CEO rejected it. When bargaining resumed, the company proposed a new health insurance plan, and ending the right of union representatives to meet with employees at the distillery. Negotiations were delayed by inclement weather, comparing health insurance plans, and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hood River declared an impasse multiple times in the months leading up to the strike, despite the sides reaching tentative agreements on some issues and making proposals that were headed toward a compromise on the remaining issues. On May 1, 2020, Hood River Distillers unilaterally implemented the offer it had made March 30. Days later, union members went on strike.
