SOUTH PORTLAND – The American Red Cross has agreed to give employees who are members of the Teamsters union a pay increase retroactive to July 1, 2000, it was announced Tuesday.

The action came after the National Labor Relations Board upheld charges filed by the Teamsters Local 340 on behalf of 43 people employed in Portland and Bangor facilities, according to a faxed release from the union’s Portland office.

“Specifically, the board agreed that the American Red Cross has broken the law by withholding pay raises from union employees, while granting such increases to non-union employees,” the fax stated.

“In addition, the American Red Cross has engaged in conduct that has interfered with, restrained and coerced employees in the exercise of their rights under the law, including the attempt to undermine the Union’s support among members of the potential bargaining unit.”

The union charged that Red Cross nonunion workers were offered a 3.5 to 5 percent raise while Teamsters were offered a 2.5 percent wage increase earlier this year.

Calls to a spokesperson for the American Red Cross were not returned Tuesday evening.

Technicians, mobile unit assistants, nurses and support staff voted to join the union in June and have been trying for more than a year to get their first contract, according to James Carson, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 340.

Charges were filed with the NLRB after workers rejected wage adjustment offers and threatened a summer work stoppage.

That action was called off pending the NLRB’s decision, according to Carson.