Majority of Calhoun-based drivers demanded vote to oust Teamsters union, but federal labor board denied election due to so-called ‘contract bar’

Calhoun, GA (May 4, 2026) – Brian Wilson, a truck driver for waste hauling company Republic Services, is asking a federal labor board to overturn a policy that is blocking him and his coworkers from exercising their right to vote out Teamsters Local 728 union officials they oppose. Wilson is defending a petition that he submitted on behalf of his coworkers last month, which demanded the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administer an election to remove Teamsters union bosses from power at their workplace. Wilson is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in his legal effort.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Wilson’s petition, which he submitted on April 2, showed that the majority of his colleagues wanted to have a vote to remove the Teamsters.

However, Teamsters union officials immediately blocked the vote by arguing that the so-called “contract bar” – an NLRB-invented policy that appears nowhere in the text of federal labor law – prevented Wilson and his colleagues from voting. The contract bar prevents workers from exercising their right to vote out an unwanted union for up to three years after union bosses and management finalize a union contract.

Wilson’s Request for Review contends, first, that the contract bar shouldn’t even apply in his workplace, as the Teamsters union contract lacks an effective date, which the law requires in order to enforce a contract bar. Wilson’s Request for Review also attacks the contract bar head-on, pointing out that it is antithetical to federal labor law’s purported goal to give workers free choice in deciding whether they want a union in their workplace or not. If the NLRB allows the contract bar to stand, Wilson and his coworkers’ requested vote will be delayed until at least 2028.

‘Contract Bar’ Curtails Workers’ Free Choice Rights, Can Lead to the Destruction of Ballots

“The contract bar…should be dispensed with because it entrenches unions that lack majority employee support, thereby undermining the cornerstone of the [National Labor Relations] Act— employees’ Sections 7 and 9 right to choose or reject union representation,” the legal filing states.

Georgia is a Right to Work state, meaning state law prohibits union officials from enforcing contracts that require workers to pay money to the union as a condition of employment. In non-Right to Work states, in contrast, union officials can get workers fired for refusal to pay dues or fees to the union hierarchy. However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials can use their government-granted exclusive “representation” powers to dictate terms of employment for every employee in a workplace, even those who oppose the union.

Foundation staff attorneys have assisted many groups of workers across the country in efforts to overturn the contract bar – including in cases where enforcement of the bar required the destruction of hundreds of worker ballots. In a case similar to Wilson’s that began in 2020, Foundation attorneys defended Delaware-based Mountaire Farms poultry workers’ right to vote United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union bosses out of their workplace. While the workers – hundreds of whom had requested a union decertification vote – finally voted the union out in 2022, the NLRB invoked the contract bar and greatly delayed that election at UFCW officials’ behest. The contract bar was even used to invalidate an earlier election that the Mountaire workers had participated in, effectively destroying hundreds of already-cast ballots.

“As Mr. Wilson’s case and the cases of many other workers have shown, the ‘contract bar’ simply gives union officials an arbitrary way to stay in power over a workplace where they face obvious employee opposition,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix commented. “Federal labor law is supposed to protect worker free choice over entrenching union boss control, and Mr. Wilson’s case exposes the contract bar as nothing but a government-granted privilege for union officials.

“If the Trump NLRB is serious about standing up for workers and putting workers back in control of their own livelihoods, ending the unreasonable restrictions of the contract bar is a great place to start,” Mix added.