Union battle. (Media).

Although advertising department staffers at the LA Weekly recently voted against organizing, the newspaper's union isn't ready to give up just yet.

The International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, which already represents the Weekly's editorial staff, last week was considering filing a complaint of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board.

"There were some things we're questioning," said Janet Wright, an IAMAW president who oversees the Weekly's Local 201. "We want them to prove us wrong that those (advertising) employees really don't need a union."

After an acrimonious organizing campaign, the union on Sept. 27 lost the organizing vote, 15 to 13. Pro-union employees blame the narrow defeat, in part, on management's expansion of the bargaining unit. The IAMAW had originally proposed organizing only the display advertising staff.

Publisher Beth Sestanovich noted that a prior organizing campaign had included the entire advertising staff and said it didn't make sense to organize only a portion of the department.

Some say that management asked certain employees to vote and kept others from doing so in order to sway the election.

"We feel the company used unfair, misleading and potentially illegal tactics to defeat the union drive and we're not too happy about that," said Howard Blume, an associate editor and vice president of Local 201.

Sestanovich rejected the union's claims. "We acted 100 percent within the letter of the law," she said.

Sestanovich said the organizing campaign has affected the alternative paper's ad sales, which are a "little bit" off from last year. "People's focus isn't on growing revenue. It is on this," she said. "It has had a slight effect on business."