ALAMOSA - The National Labor Relations Board heard arguments from attorneys representing the Teamsters Local 455 and from the World Minerals Corp., the Lompoc, Calif.-based parent of Harborlite, but the biggest outcome of the Wednesday morning session is that a decision is at least two to three months away.

And the final word could be much farther away.

The union has made a charge with the NLRB that stating that the firm "engaged in bad-faith bargaining… by threatening employees and their collective bargaining representative, that the employer would lock out employees and would hire permanent replacements for the locked out employees."

The complaint states further, "The Charging Party requests temporary injunctive relief under Section 10(j) [of the National Labor Relations Act] restoring the status quo before the lockout and requiring the Employer to reinstate employees immediately with back pay and engage in good faith bargaining."

The lockout ended Jan. 12, with work for the union members resuming Jan. 16, starting with a short safety retraining period that was required.

If Harborlite loses a decision and is ordered to pay a large amount of back pay for the period when Teamsters were locked out, an appeal may be made to a federal district appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Even if further steps in the decision process go only to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), that agency has only two members out of a normal delegation of five.

According to NLRB attorney Michael Cooperman, the board faces a huge backlog due to the present lack of ability to make decisions.

Administrative Law Judge William Kocol heard testimony from several union members about how they heard about the lockout and whether an impression was made that the loss of jobs was permanent, not temporary.

Harborlite lawyers claimed that the firm was not aware that a COBRA letter had been sent to a union member who testified that he received one.

COBRA letters are documents received by employees who have been terminated, explaining how they may still receive health care benefits. The firm's lawyers declared "the letter had been issued by a third party." It was explained this third party is under contract with Harborlite and its parent businesses.

A week after the lockout began, on Oct. 14 Harborlite sent a letter out saying that the replacements were temporary, not permanent. Michael Belo, a lawyer representing the union, said in reply that the issue was not whether the replacement workers were permanent or not, but in how the firm may have given the impression to newly hired workers that they were permanent.

Belo noted that advertisements in newspapers to attract prospective workers did not say anything about whether the positions were temporary or permanent, just that the company was "replacing bargaining union employees."

Belo added, "The company initially communicated their threat of permanent replacement."

No matter what is decided after the hearing at the Conference Center at Main and Blanca streets west of the San Luis Valley Medical Center, the lawyers' briefs summarizing arguments are not due to be submitted to Judge Kocol until Feb. 17, and then he will take 30 to 60 days to make a decision, so mid-March or April is the earliest possible time for a legal outcome.

At this time, the union and Harborlite are not in further labor negotiations.