CalPortland Fresno Ready Mix Drivers File Petition to End Teamsters Local 431 Union Boss “Representation”
Majority of workers back petition seeking to free themselves of Teamsters union officials
Fresno, CA (October 31, 2025) – Drivers of building materials company CalPortland’s Fresno Ready Mix Plant have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting that the NLRB hold a “decertification” election to remove Teamsters Local 431 from their workplace. The drivers’ efforts are spearheaded by Darrell Dunlap Sr., who filed the petition with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
Dunlap Sr.’s petition is supported by the majority of his coworkers, who also seek a secret ballot election from the NLRB to vote out the Teamsters as the drivers’ monopoly bargaining “representative.”
“This workplace has been under Teamster union control for over 20 years, so we’ve seen union officials’ actions up close for many years,” commented Dunlap Sr. “As our majority-backed petition shows, based on our extensive experience with the Teamsters, we are confident we’ll be better off without a union.”
California is one of the 24 states that lack Right to Work protections, which allows Teamsters union bosses to impose union monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. By contrast, in neighboring Right to Work states like Arizona and Nevada, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary.
Independent-minded workers across the United States have been leading efforts to decertify Teamsters union bosses. The Foundation has seen a marked rise in requests from workers seeking legal assistance in Teamsters decertification cases.
“The rank-and-file are the most familiar with the union officials in their workplaces, and this is just the latest of a growing number of employees who have decided to exercise their right to free themselves of unwanted so-called ‘representation,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Given Teamsters’ bosses’ intimidation tactics or worse, it is not surprising that the Teamsters are regularly the union that faces the most worker decertification drives.”
Puerto Rico Public Workers Defend First Amendment Right to Stop Union Dues Payments in Federal Court Arguments
Two arguments held this week at First Circuit Court of Appeals involve rights under landmark Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision
San Juan, PR (October 30, 2025) – Oral arguments for two lawsuits in which Puerto Rico public employees are defending their First Amendment rights under the Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision are taking place before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan this week. Both sets of workers are receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The Supreme Court recognized in the landmark Janus decision that all public sector workers have a First Amendment right to cut off dues payments to union officials. The Janus ruling further clarified that union officials cannot deduct union dues from any public sector worker’s paycheck unless he has affirmatively waived his First Amendment right not to pay. Foundation staff attorneys argued and won Janus in 2018.
Despite Janus’ clear standards, union officials have attempted to circumvent the decision in a number of ways, necessitating further Foundation legal action.
PRASA Employee Fights Blatantly Illegal Forced-Dues Statute
The first Foundation case, Cruz v. UIA, which the First Circuit heard Wednesday, involves Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) employee Reynaldo Cruz’s attempt to reclaim union dues money that officials of the Authentic Independent Union of Water and Sewer Authority Employees (UIA) took in violation of the First Amendment. Cruz’s lawsuit challenged both union bosses’ demands that he pay union dues or lose his job, as well as the Puerto Rico territorial laws that greenlight such unconstitutional demands.
As opposed to resolving the legal claims in his case, the Puerto Rico District Court confusingly ruled Cruz’s case “moot” after UIA union officials remitted his illegally-seized dues money to the Clerk of the District Court. Cruz has still not received his money, and argues that his Janus rights will not be vindicated until a judgment is entered in his favor.
UPR Workers Seek to Vindicate Years of Illegal Dues Deductions
The second Foundation case, which the First Circuit is slated to hear Friday (Ramos v. Delgado), is a challenge from University of Puerto Rico (UPR) maintenance employees Jose Ramos, Antonio Mendez, Jose Cotto, and Igneris Perez. They argue that union officials seized union dues from their paychecks for years both in violation of Janus and other legal protections that predate Janus.
Ramos and the other plaintiffs contend that union officials never sought their consent properly for dues deductions both before and after the Janus decision, and that they should receive refunds of all dues taken unlawfully within the 15-year statute of limitations.
“Janus laid out the very simple principle that public sector workers – not union bosses – should be in charge of deciding whether a union has earned their financial support,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Despite Janus’ clear constitutional command, union bosses and legislators still try to skirt it, and courts still allow obvious violations to go unpunished. In Mr. Cruz’s case, the District Court refused to even examine a Puerto Rico statute that authorizes illegal forced-dues language in public sector union contracts.
“All public sector workers deserve the free choice that Janus secures, and Foundation attorneys will continue to back them in their court battles for freedom,” Mix added.
Johns Hopkins Ph.D. Student Slams UE Union With Federal Charges for Demanding She Divulge Private Info
Union demanded student be discharged even though nothing in union contract or federal law requires students to give up such info
Baltimore, MD (October 24, 2025) – Andrea Ori, a molecular biophysics Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins, has filed federal charges against United Electrical (UE) union officials at the university. She maintains that UE union bosses demanded her ouster from the academic program because she refused to turn over confidential financial records protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Ori filed her charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and adjudicating disputes between union officials, employers, and employees that arise under the statute. Even though the NLRA doesn’t include graduate students in its definition of “employees,” Obama NLRB appointees ruled in the controversial 2016 Columbia University decision that the NLRA allows union officials to gain monopoly bargaining power over graduate students at private universities, like Johns Hopkins.
Furthermore, Maryland is a state that lacks Right to Work protections, meaning union officials have the government-granted power to force those under their bargaining control to pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job.
At private universities in non-Right to Work states, union bosses can effectively end the graduate programs of students who refuse to pay union dues.
However, graduate students can opt out of dues payment for union political activities by invoking their rights under the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America vs. Beck SCOTUS decision. Federal antidiscrimination law also requires that union officials and university administrators provide religious accommodations for students who oppose union financial support on religious grounds.
Charges: Threatening Student With Termination for Guarding Confidential Financial Info is Illegal “Industrial Capital Punishment” Under Federal Law
Ori, who had successfully obtained a religious accommodation to union dues payment in 2024, now maintains in her charge that UE union officials ordered her for months to turn over pay stubs and other documents that contain private information. Her charges argue that union officials made these demands arbitrarily and in bad faith.
“Nothing in the [union contract], the Charging Party’s religious accommodation, or the NLRA required Charging Party to disclose this private financial information, which was also protected by FERPA,” Ori’s charges say. FERPA generally requires student or parental consent before educational institutions can disclose identifying information to third parties, like unions. Union officials have no right to receive students’ private information.
Even though these demands have no basis, the charges say, UE union bosses are still trying to upend Ori’s academic career. “After months of threatening Charging Party and harassing her to produce these unnecessary and private financial documents containing personal information, the [UE] formally demanded that the University discharge Charging Party,” the charges say. Ori’s attorneys are arguing that the NLRB should consider the union’s wrongful discharge request a form of industrial capital punishment.
“Ms. Ori’s case is just the latest Foundation legal action to show why giving union bosses power over graduate students was never a good idea,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Union officials, who are often radical political operatives, have threatened academic freedom from coast-to-coast with their federally-enforced clout over university administrations. But, as Ms. Ori’s case shows, they are also threatening graduate students’ careers by acting as if they have a right to send them packing for not divulging their private information.
“Foundation attorneys stand ready to defend graduate students anywhere from these and other rights violations by union officials,” Mix added. “The obvious conflict between these union boss power grabs over graduate students and students’ statutory privacy rights under FERPA is yet another reminder that Congress never intended for such students to be subjected to monopoly unionism under the National Labor Relations Act.”
Heavy Equipment Operators File Federal Charges Against Operating Engineers Union for Illegal Retaliation
IUOE union officials unlawfully threatened “internal discipline” fines against workers who continued employment with nonunion contractor
Lawrenceville, GA (October 21, 2025) – A group of construction industry employees of Dennis Taylor & Co. have filed federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 926 alleging IUOE union officials subjected them to illegal post-resignation discipline after the employees legally resigned their union memberships.
The workers’ charges were filed at the NLRB with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
The employees, Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, David Johnson, and Chris Oaks resigned their IUOE memberships months or years ago. Despite this, union officials are threatening the workers with fines, apparently for working at Dennis Taylor & Co., which once was part of a “hiring hall” arrangement with IUOE, but no longer is.
The resignations came after Dennis Taylor & Co. removed itself from an arrangement to hire employees through an IUOE union boss-controlled hiring hall. In theory, both union members and nonmembers can utilize union-run hiring halls to find employment with employers that have decided to utilize the hiring hall to fill openings. However there is a long history of union officials using hiring halls to discriminate against nonmembers and coerce workers into formal union membership in order to attain employment.
The charges filed by Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, and Chris Oaks each state that even before formally resigning from the union, the employees were never voluntary union members, as they had been misled into believing that union membership was mandatory. Though union officials frequently mislead workers into believing that formal union membership is required, the problem is especially prevalent when employment involves union hiring halls.
Under longstanding law, only fully voluntary union members can be subjected to internal union discipline, which often involves fines levied against workers at odds with union boss demands. Workers cannot face discipline for actions that occur after a worker has resigned from such voluntary union membership.
“Contrary to the apparent wishes of IUOE Local 926 union bosses, formal union membership cannot be required as a condition of employment, a precedent in place since the early 1960s,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is outrageous that IUOE union officials are attempting to barge back into the lives of these workers years after they’ve legally exercised their rights, and are now illegally threatening them with fines simply for working to provide for themselves and their families.”
Starbucks Baristas File Brief Urging Supreme Court to Allow President to Remove Rogue Agency Officers
National Right to Work Foundation-backed federal case for Starbucks employees was first federal case to argue that NLRB officials can’t be shielded from the President’s oversight
Washington, DC (October 20, 2025) – Two Starbucks employees represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation have filed an amicus brief at the United States Supreme Court in the case Trump v. Slaughter. The brief argues that restrictions on the President’s authority to fire members of executive bodies, such as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), are unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers.
The amicus brief was filed on behalf of Ariana Cortes and Logan Karam, two New York Starbucks employees who challenged the constitutionality of the structure of the NLRB in a separate federal court case with the assistance of Foundation staff attorneys.
Since 2023, Foundation staff attorneys have pioneered the legal argument that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional because it places restrictions on the President’s authority to fire the NLRB’s members, despite it being part of the executive branch of government. This disconnect exemplifies the problem of federal bureaucrats operating as an unaccountable, “headless fourth branch,” something clearly at odds with the government’s constitutional structure.
Now, the Trump Administration is using this same argument as a justification to fire members of the FTC. Rebecca Slaughter, a Biden appointee to the FTC, has sued to be reinstated, and the case is now before the Supreme Court. The Foundation-backed amicus brief argues that as the Court considers the FTC, it must keep in mind that other so-called “independent agencies” that wield executive power, such as the NLRB, must be subject to Presidential control and removal.
Supreme Court May Reverse Humphrey’s, Must Recognize Its Limitations
Trump v. Slaughter provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to reverse its decision in the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, in which the Court crafted an exception to the general rule that the President can remove principal officers at will under Article II of the U.S. Constitution. In theory, Humphrey’s exempted agencies that exercised “quasi-judicial” or “quasi-legislative” power, but not those that exercise executive power.
But regardless of the Court’s reevaluation of the case, “the NLRB fails the Humphrey’s Executor test,” the brief argues.
“The NLRB is a policymaking body that enforces the [National Labor Relations Act] based on its legal conclusions, not scientific or technical judgments,” write Foundation staff attorneys. “[T]he Board does not exercise quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial authority. It exercises executive power in everything it does.”
The brief concludes with the Foundation’s legal argument that Humphrey’s “cannot neuter the President’s ability to supervise those who exercise substantial parts of [executive] power.” Therefore, the Supreme Court “should make clear that the President’s removal power applies to every agency that exercises executive power, including the NLRB.”
Clear Separation of Powers Would Support Workers’ Individual Rights
A proper understanding of the limitations of Humphrey’s when it comes to executive bodies like the NLRB would support workers like Cortes and Karam as they exercise their individual rights. Cortes and Karam are trying to exercise their right to remove local union bosses from their respective workplaces. But non-statutory policies enforced by the pro-Big Labor Biden NLRB have stymied their efforts. Success in this case could help ensure that Cortes and Karam receive a fair judgment from the NLRB in their cases.
“Unaccountable and biased NLRB bureaucrats have caused direct harm to independent-minded workers and their individual rights, and the Supreme Court should rightfully restore the proper separation of powers, including at the NLRB,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We are proud that the very legal arguments made by Foundation attorneys are now being utilized by this administration to dismantle the unaccountable fourth branch of government and restore proper constitutional structure.”
City of Everett Employee Appeals to Washington State PERC in Case Challenging Unconstitutional Money Seizures by AFSCME Officials
Appeal: Employer botched handling employee request to cut off dues deductions, AFSCME union officials refuse to return ill-gotten money
Olympia, WA (October 17, 2025) – City of Everett employee Xenia Davidsen is asking the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) to reverse a ruling letting union bosses and city officials off the hook for taking union dues from her paycheck after she requested a stop to further deductions. Davidsen is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Davidsen’s case charges American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union officials and City of Everett officials with seizing union dues from her paycheck after she invoked her First Amendment rights under the Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision. In Janus, the Supreme Court recognized that public employees have a First Amendment right to refuse to pay dues to an unwanted union in their workplace. Janus also held that union officials can only deduct union dues and fees from a public sector worker who has voluntarily waived his or her Janus rights.
Davidsen’s latest filing in her case, which is an appeal from a PERC Hearing Examiner’s ruling, maintains that after revoking her dues-deduction authorization, “on 14 separate pay periods…dues were nevertheless deducted from her paycheck.” According to the appeal, Davidsen requested that dues deductions end in June 2024, at which point union officials informed the City of Everett that it should cease remitting money from her paychecks into the union’s accounts.
However, the appeal says, “the [City of Everett] failed to follow these instructions because it failed to monitor the email address that it had designated for the Union to communicate dues revocations.” Even worse, AFSCME union officials twelve times accepted dues money that City officials wrongfully took from Davidsen’s paycheck.
“On none of those…instances did the Union stop to question why it was accepting dues that it knew were unauthorized to it,” Davidsen’s brief says, yet the PERC Hearing Examiner did not find any violation of Washington labor law on the union’s part. Davidsen also contests the Hearing Examiner’s logic freeing the City of Everett from any fault regarding its improper handling of the notification to stop dues deductions: “Under the Hearing Officer’s reasoning…[the City of Everett] could indefinitely deduct dues that it has constructive notice it must put a stop to.”
Davidsen’s appeal argues that the PERC Hearing Officer incorrectly ruled Davidsen’s complaint as being filed too late under the six-month statute of limitations. Instead of treating each dues deduction from Davidsen’s paycheck as a separate violation of the law, Davidsen’s attorneys argue, the Hearing Examiner arbitrarily treated City of Everett officials’ ignoring her instruction to stop dues deductions as the only event at issue, putting the date of her original complaint outside the statute of limitations.
“AFSCME union officials believe they should be able to hold onto the hard-earned money of dissenting employees like Ms. Davidsen simply because they and City of Everett officials refuse to correct their own misdeeds,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While this certainly shows the contempt that AFSCME officials have for public employees’ First Amendment Janus rights, it’s even more worrying that PERC officials are doing legal gymnastics to let union bosses get away with it.
“Under Janus, union bosses must now convince public sector workers to voluntarily support their agenda, and are not entitled to take – or keep – any money they know was seized without that voluntarism,” Mix added.
AT&T-BellSouth Workers Challenge Union-Concocted ‘Window Period’ Restrictions on Ending Dues
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CWA officials trap dissenting workers, but case asks NLRB to declare ‘window period’ restrictions illegal
Jennifer Abruzzo went straight from being a top CWA union lawyer to being General Counsel of the Biden NLRB. Though President Trump fired her, that doesn’t mean that workers don’t still have to battle the anti-freedom policies she advanced.
MIAMI, FL – In August 2024, Communications Workers of America (CWA) union bosses ordered thousands of AT&T employees across the Southeast to abandon their jobs and go on strike. Unsurprisingly, despite union officials’ propaganda surrounding the strike, many workers disagreed with the decision.
“CWA union officials ordered us to abandon our jobs when many of us just wanted to keep working and supporting ourselves and our families,” commented Amanda Marc, a Miami-based worker for AT&T-BellSouth. “That’s bad enough, but now they’re putting up all these roadblocks to try to prevent those of us who don’t like the union’s agenda from stopping our money from flowing to them.”
Marc is referring to a situation that South Florida AT&T-BellSouth workers have been increasingly dealing with in the aftermath of the strike, which came to an end in September 2024. With free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys, Marc and her coworker Sofia Hernaiz filed unfair labor practice charges against CWA union officials, detailing that the union hierarchy has ignored their requests to cut off dues payments and has continued to siphon money from their paychecks illegally. Additional charges for other AT&T-BellSouth workers are also being filed.
Dues Kept Flowing to Union After Workers Requested Stop
Marc and Hernaiz’s charges point out that CWA officials are imposing a “window period” scheme on workers who want to end financial support, limiting to just ten days per year the time in which workers can demand that dues deductions cease from their paychecks.
“This kind of behavior makes me feel like they’re really just interested in having control over us and taking our money,” Marc added. Marc and Hernaiz filed their charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law.
Marc’s charge in particular challenges the practice of imposing “window periods” as violating the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): While the NLRA unfortunately allows union officials to prevent a worker from revoking his or her dues authorization card for the first year after it is initially signed, Marc’s charge notes that any further restrictions are unlawful.
“The unions have no statutory license to create tricky and arbitrary ‘window periods’ to force unwilling employees to keep paying dues,” Marc’s charges say.
Because Marc, Hernaiz, and their colleagues work in the Right to Work state of Florida, CWA union bosses are forbidden from forcing workers to pay any union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs, though CWA union officials are trying to limit the exercise of this freedom with their window period scheme. In states that lack Right to Work protections, in contrast, union officials can force employees to pay fees to the union or be terminated, meaning even perfect “compliance” with a union boss’s arbitrary window period restriction would not get a worker out of forced union payments.
Marc and Hernaiz’s charges state that they, and many of their coworkers, resigned their union memberships in August 2024, which was around when CWA union officials ordered AT&T-BellSouth workers out on the strike. Despite the women’s requests to end union membership and stop financial support for the union, the charges read, CWA agents never responded to their requests to stop dues deductions, and never even informed them of the window period dates in which they would consider their requests valid.
Even worse, Hernaiz details in her charge that union officials tried to subject her to internal union discipline for not participating in the strike. Under federal law, union bosses cannot impose union proceedings on workers who are not union members. Foundation attorneys are in the process of aiding other AT&T-BellSouth workers targeted by such illegal discipline.
No Legal Justification for ‘Window Periods,’ New NLRB Should Toss Policy
“Federal labor law is supposed to protect the right of workers to decide freely whether they want to join or financially support a union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “So-called ‘window periods’ exist only to restrict this freedom just so union officials can continue to funnel dues money from workers’ pockets straight into union agendas.
“The NLRB under the new Administration should recognize that this practice contradicts both worker freedom and federal law, and end it accordingly,” Mix added.
Cincinnati-Area Kroger Worker Secures Victory Against Illegal Union Dues Deductions
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
After legal win, grocery employee based near Cincinnati finds job in nearby Right to Work Kentucky to escape forced dues
Northern Kentucky (foreground) might be just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, OH, but the difference in worker freedom is stark. Without Right to Work, forced dues abuses are rampant compared to Right to Work Kentucky.
CINCINNATI, OH – In a win for employee freedom, James Carroll, a Kroger employee based near Cincinnati, has secured victory in his federal case against United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 75 and Kroger. The win comes after Carroll challenged the union and his employer for unlawfully deducting union dues from his paycheck and threatening him with termination for refusing to sign an illegal dues deduction form.
Carroll, with free legal support from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 9 in Cincinnati. His case exposed the UFCW’s use of an unlawful “dual-purpose” membership form, which combines union membership and dues deduction authorization into a single signature. Under established Supreme Court legal precedents, workers have the right to refrain from formal union membership, and any dues deduction authorizations must be voluntary and separate from membership agreements.
In order to avoid further prosecution, Kroger and UFCW entered into a settlement that requires them to reimburse Carroll for the illegally seized dues and publicly post a notice informing other employees of their rights.
But Carroll didn’t stop there. To protect himself from future union coercion, he secured a transfer to a Kroger store in Right to Work Kentucky. Unlike Ohio, where workers can be forced to pay union fees even as non-members, Kentucky’s Right to Work law ensures that all union payments are voluntary, shielding Carroll from further threats that he pay up or face termination.
This case challenging the UFCW’s forced dues abuse of grocery employees isn’t an isolated incident. In 2023, Houston-area Kroger employee Jessica Haefner, also aided by Foundation attorneys, filed charges against UFCW for using a dual-purpose form and altering her response to falsely indicate consent for dues deductions.
More recently, in 2024, Portland grocery worker Reegin Schaffer won a case against UFCW after union officials ignored her resignation request during a strike and retaliated by attempting to fine her for working.
Another Worker Flees to the Freedom of Right to Work
“We are pleased with this legal win for Mr. Carroll, and that he is now completely free of union bosses’ forced-dues demands in Right to Work Kentucky,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“Unfortunately most workers employed in forced dues states don’t have the option to commute to a job in a Right to Work state, which is why workers everywhere need the protection of Right to Work laws.”
Workers Nationwide Urge Trump NLRB to End Policies Trapping Them Under Union Power
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
NLRB-invented policies currently allow union bosses to block worker-requested votes
Theresa Hause, an Oregon-based school bus driver, wants the Trump NLRB to end the so-called “merger doctrine” that grants union officials the power to combine workplaces into giant, inescapable mega-units.
WASHINGTON, DC – During the Biden Administration, biased, pro-Big Labor National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) bureaucrats went out of their way to undermine the idea that workers and workers alone should choose whether or not they want a union. Rolling back multiple National Right to Work Foundation-backed reforms that made it easier for workers to vote out unions they didn’t want was a prime example of this.
But the Biden NLRB’s extremism is only the latest example of how federal labor law is biased against workers opposed to union affiliation. The truth is that biased bureaucrats on the NLRB have, for decades, burdened independent-minded workers with arbitrary barriers to freeing themselves from union influence. Many of these policies — which are the inventions of NLRB decisions and appear nowhere in the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) text — let union bosses block workers from exercising their statutory right to vote to remove a union.
Bus Drivers Fight Forced Dues in Huge, Inescapable Teamsters Unit
The Trump Administration taking control of the NLRB in Washington, D.C., has presented workers around the country who want to escape union influence with a new opportunity to attack these restrictions. Foundation attorneys are already helping workers lead the charge for reform to create precedents that will allow others to remove unions opposed by most workers.
Last December, Theresa Hause, a Washington State-based school bus driver, submitted to the NLRB a deauthorization petition which contained employee support well over the necessary threshold needed to trigger a vote to strip Teamsters Local 58 bosses of their forced-dues power in Hause’s workplace. Hause and her fellow drivers are employed by First Student, Inc.
She was surprised to learn during NLRB proceedings that First Student management and Teamsters union officials had covertly signed an agreement “merging” Hause’s small unit of workers into a much larger national unit, composed of thousands of Teamsters-controlled bus drivers across the country.
Because of the NLRB’s so-called “merger doctrine” policy, Hause and her colleagues are now in this “mega-unit,” and any petition to end the union’s forced-dues power (or remove the union completely) needs to contain signatures from at least 30% of the “mega-unit” — thousands of people Hause has never met — to be considered valid. The NLRB official that dismissed Hause’s petition even ruled that the fact employees were kept in the dark about this merger was irrelevant, outrageously saying “there is nothing in the merger doctrine that requires acquiescence or even notification of employees of a change in a bargaining unit.”
Hause’s Foundation-provided attorneys are challenging the merger doctrine in an appeal of Hause’s case to the NLRB in D.C., arguing among other things that the policy violates employee free choice and that it serves as a protection racket for established unions.
While Hause and her colleagues are fighting for a vote to free themselves from forced dues, attacking the merger doctrine also has significant ramifications for workers seeking to decertify a union. Foundation attorneys have represented many workers who have been shanghaied into huge, inescapable work units against their will. That includes a group of less than 10 Wisconsin First Student workers who filed a majority-backed petition to remove Teamsters officials as soon as allowed by federal law, only to be stymied by the merger doctrine because they had been secretly “merged” into a multi-company unit of around 24,000 workers in multiple states.
WV Homecare Workers Not ‘Settling’ for ‘Settlement Bar’
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, a Foundation-assisted employee of senior homecare nonprofit McDowell County Commission on Aging is attacking the NLRB’s use of another union boss-friendly policy to block his and his coworkers’ effort to kick out Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses: the so-called “settlement bar,” which lets unions and employers unilaterally agree in settlements to end employee-led union decertification efforts.
The employee, John Reeves, and his coworkers cast ballots in a July 2024 vote to remove SEIU union officials, but are now battling claims that a settlement SEIU bosses and Commission management signed should relegate those ballots to the trash bin. The SEIU and Commission entered into the settlement to end the decertification and resolve unfair labor practice allegations union agents had filed against the employer. That supposed employer wrongdoing was cited as the impetus for Reeves and his coworkers’ desire to remove the union — even though it was never admitted to by the employer nor proven by union lawyers.
Instead of letting Reeves show why the union’s accusations didn’t cause his employees’ disenchantment with the union, regional NLRB officials instead invoked the settlement bar and dismissed the decertification effort, based on the phony “resolution” of speculative charges by the union. Reeves is asking the NLRB in Washington, D.C., to review his case.
Reform Needed to Undo Coercive Policy
“Ms. Hause’s and Mr. Reeves’ cases provide just a sampling of the grand buffet of privileges the NLRB has granted union bosses over the years,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Union bosses and complicit employers should not be able to cut workers off from exercising their basic right to remove unpopular union bosses, yet that’s exactly what both the ‘merger doctrine’ and ‘settlement bar’ allow.
“If members of the Trump NLRB are dedicated to defending the rights of all American workers, they will focus not only on countering the extensive damage done to individual worker rights by the Biden Labor Board, but also on digging deeper to undo the web of non-statutory coercive union boss powers that has been created over decades,” Semmens added.
