Labor charges, failed sale upends company

From a precipitous drop in business after Sept. 11, 2001, to allegations of unfair labor practices and two failed attempts to sell the company, the decline of Ozark Mountain Interiors Inc., a commercial interior remodeling firm, has been painful by all accounts. The company has been closed for a couple of months.

Sept. 11 fallout

Former OMI project manager Todd Matthews, son-in-law of OMI owner Alvin Clifton, said he does not know why the company closed. Matthews, who is married to Clifton’s daughter Lori, left OMI in summer 2003 and now sells high-end cars for Motorcars International.

Although Matthews is quoted in court documents related to an OMI labor dispute as saying in January 2003 that Clifton would close shop if employees unionized, he discounts the union issue as the reason for the closing.

Matthews instead points to slowed job orders in a post 9/11 retail environment that caused the company to shift gears. OMI went from a national retail remodel and infill firm for such companies as Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, OshKosh B’Gosh and Rockport to a local commercial millwork firm specializing in cabinetry, Matthews said.

“Name a brand and we probably worked for them in the past,” Matthews said, noting that in mid-2001, the 60-employee company was doing multimillion-dollar work. After 9/11, Matthews said, new jobs all but stopped.

By the time he left the company in mid-2003, employment had been cut in half.

Unionizing

Carpenter’s Union, Local 978 organizer Art Kessler said that in fall 2002, he and other union officials were lobbying OMI employees for union membership.

“We went on an organizing campaign over there,” Kessler said. “In my position as an organizer, that’s part of what I do.”

According to court testimony, Kessler telephoned Alvin Clifton on Oct. 23, 2002, to discuss a union collective-bargaining agreement. In the recorded telephone conversation, Clifton told Kessler, “I understand where you’re coming from, and I’d rather not get involved with the union – third party in the shop, from my standpoint and I … and I don’t know, my employees, maybe they want it.”

Kessler: “Yeah. What if – what if that was the situation? What if your employees were interested?”

Clifton: “You know what, I’d probably have to close down.”

Kessler: “Close down?”

Clifton: “You know, we bid these jobs, what we got. We’ve got a lot of work, but you know, we have to be very competitive to get it. It’s not that I’m making a lot of money, I’m not. We’re just barely keeping them open, couldn’t keep my doors open. You know, if I didn’t have work for the guys, I’d have to send them home, and right now, if I don’t have work, I keep them busy sweeping floors, doing whatever they can do just so they get a paycheck every week.”

Labor dispute

Fast forward to 2003. The AFL-CIO filed four lawsuits against OMI between May and July of that year. The suits alleged that Clifton terminated eight OMI employees following meetings between the employees and union officials and after some employees signed union authorization cards.

In a June 25 decision, U.S. Administra-tive Law Judge Albert A. Metz found that OMI violated federal labor laws in terminating the eight employees and refusing to hire or to consider hiring three union members. The company was ordered to make whole those 11 individuals for any loss of earnings or benefits, minus any net interim earnings, due to discrimination.

The deadline to appeal this decision was July 23. As of July 22, OMI officials had not filed an appeal, according to National Labor Relations Board Regional Director Michael McConnell.

“The judge’s decision is just a recommendation on findings,” McConnell said. “The (National Labor Relations Board) has to adopt that to make it an order. With no exceptions or appeal filed, then normally the board does that in short form.”

Clifton did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him via phone and through family members.

Financial strains

Approximately 25 cases are on file against OMI in Greene County Circuit Court – including that of Springfield attorney Donald W. Jones. Most are filed by companies seeking payment from OMI. Several judgments have been made this year in favor of plaintiffs.

Jones represented OMI from December 2002 to November 2003. He has filed suit against OMI claiming he is owed more than $31,000.

“They didn’t pay me. That was a problem,” Jones said.

Jones got a union election petition thrown out for OMI, and had begun to fight the NLRB charges when the bottom fell out.

“I didn’t get paid one dime. I just couldn’t afford to spend any more time on it,” Jones said.

Jones is now searching for OMI assets to collect on, but more likely he’ll sue company officers individually, he said. OMI’s 2003 registration filing with the Secretary of State’s office lists Clifton as president and director, Clifton’s daughter Lori L. Matthews as secretary, Clifton’s wife Grace J. Clifton as treasurer, and Sam L. Clifton as vice president.

Also, the Greene County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating two bad payroll checks issued to OMI employees.

“There has been a couple of payroll checks that were not honored for insufficient funds that have been turned into us for enforcement purposes,” said Mike Huddleston, Greene County assistant prosecuting attorney. “We’ll investigate them and if we can, we’ll file charges.”

Each check is written for more than $500, which would carry two felony counts, Huddleston said.

No Sale

At the time Todd Matthews left the company, negotiations were under way to sell OMI, and the company was not alone in its hope that the sale would turn it around.

“During all that time, there was a company that was going to buy them out. They led me to believe that was a cinch,” Jones said. When the sale didn’t happen, Jones called it quits.

In fact, there were two companies that were interested in acquiring OMI. Both deals fell through, but for different reasons.

Third Millennium Industries Inc., a manufacturer of high-end horse trailers out of Rogersville, was interested in acquiring OMI in 2003 for its millwork skills, said Dennis DePriest, Third Millennium’s president and CEO at the time.

But the deal crumbled in October when OMI officials asked Third Millennium to accept undisclosed liabilities.

“We wouldn’t go forward under those terms, obviously,” DePriest said. “Nobody can do that. We wasted all kinds of time and money getting to the point we thought we’d close.”

After Third Millennium dropped out, OMI officials were working a sale with Quest Capital Energy LLC of Tulsa, Okla., according to Kevin Gross, whose Nixa company also was being pursued by Quest.

It may be just as well for OMI, however, that the sale to Quest didn’t go through. Gross said he found out too late that Quest couldn’t swing the deal for his business. He relinquished control of his company to Quest while Quest was securing financing, but the financing never materialized. His business was severely harmed in the process.

Quest also was unable to finance the OMI deal, and by May, OMI was closed, Gross said.