Toni Johnson is a former labor union member and is entitled to her late husband's machinist union pension.

However, the prospect of a union setting up shop at Harry & David Operations, where she works in the call center, doesn't thrill the 56-year-old Central Point resident.

Johnson says employees wouldn't mind raises and adjustments to their medical plans, but the answer isn't joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which is running an organization campaign.

"I'm pro union, but I just don't see it coming here," says Johnson, who carried a union card during her 12 years as a Disneyland employee. "The union was trying to get more for us at Disneyland. Then all of the sudden we started losing things (such as off-hours park access)."

She fears that if Harry & David became a union shop, many of the perks taken for granted such as employee discounts would go away.

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Although she admits some bumps in the road since Wasserstein & Co. announced it was buying the company from Japan's Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical in April 2004, there was little talk of organizing before now.

The movement was triggered, union organizers say, by Harry & David's decision to boost the number of annual hours to 1,600 in order to qualify for and sustain benefits, on the heels of last year's pension freeze.

For 67-year-old Peggy Millard a 13-year outbound telemarketing veteran, that new requirement came at a time when she hoping to reduce her work time. Millard, one of the long-time workers whose benefits were grandfathered in at lower qualifying standards in the past hoped to reduce her hours to three days. The 1,600-hour mark changed all that.

"Now I'm working like crazy," says Millard, who is trying to retain her benefits by getting in enough hours. "I think I will get it by the skin of my teeth."

Millard is representative of what she calls senior ladies in their 50s and 60s who have 15 to 20 years for Harry & David. She works about 47 weeks a year and gets laid off "once or twice a year."

"The majority of senior women here are working to support their husband or get medical benefits," Millard says. "They work three or four days a week, whatever they needed to keep their benefits. Now that the grandfathered thing is out, I think the union would be beneficial."

While Millard has been outspoken and wrote a letter to the editor about the matter, she says many of her peers have been less vocal — even if they support organization.

"A lot of the ladies talk in private, but when it comes to standing up for it they waffle down a little," Millard says. "A lot of them have asked me if I got in trouble for writing a letter to the editor and I said not at all. Mostly the talk is at break and lunchtime, and there's not a whole lot of that either."

Harry & David President and Chief Executive Bill Williams says the company has steadily grown from a highly-seasonal operation to one that is now in production much of the year. Although there is still a fall-off after Mother's Day, Williams says the goal has been to offer employees more hours over the years.

"Seasonal employees are important to us because of our peak periods," Williams says. "A lot of our people have outdoor jobs in the summer months and they're not active in the winter. We have semi-retired people who like to travel in the summer, people who want supplemental income in fall and have another job with benefits. There are all kinds of reasons to be seasonal."

Williams says unions tend to exaggerate and generalize single incidents to their advantage.

"Our point of view is that a union is not necessary at Harry & David," Williams says. "We have very generous and responsible policies and benefits and will make that point to everybody at Harry & David. Union campaigns generally foster controversy to make people uncomfortable with whatever they represent the situation to be."

Bill Street, the Machinist & Workers Department representative for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, based in Upper Marlboro, Md., says of the unspecified number of workers the union has contacted directly, only 14 have refused to sign cards.

"Each campaign is different and it never seems to move fast enough," Street says. "The larger the unit, the longer it takes. It took two years to the point where we even surfaced here. In this type of activity there are tipping points and that's someplace between 45 and 65 percent of the workforce being signed up."

Nanci Corum, 54, of Medford, isn't likely be one of them. She has worked in the packing house for nearly 20 years, puts in 38 hours a week and wasn't in danger of losing benefits.

"I'm not really pro or con about the union," she says. "But I don't feel like I've received enough information to go pro union."

Corum, whose husband also works for the company, says she's heard talk about union on and off over the years.

"When they take away benefits or insurance or don't give us a raise it kind of comes up," Corum says. "Some of the things you can't negotiate, but neither could a union. They say they want to be our voice, but I feel we can be our own voice if that's all they are offering."

Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or at business@mailtribune.com