AT&T Workers Nationwide Win Challenges to Unionization Imposed Through Card Check
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Victories by AT&T workers in five states preceded Biden-Harris NLRB rule change to block secret ballot votes
See You, CWA: Marquita Jones (left), Samantha Cain (middle), and Matthew Gonzalez rallied their fellow AT&T workers to escape unwanted CWA unions.
WASHINGTON, DC – While the Biden-Harris National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sought to upend NLRB rules designed to protect workers’ ability to vote out unwanted unions, AT&T workers across the country won a series of victories highlighting the importance of allowing workers to challenge coercive union card check unionization with secret ballot votes. The decertification victories all relied on the National Right to Work Foundation-backed 2020 NLRB “Election Protection Rule” (EPR), which was formally eliminated by the Biden-Harris Labor Board in September.
In five separate cases covering well over 1,000 workers, AT&T Mobility employees have successfully overturned Communications Workers of America (CWA) unionization imposed through the notorious “card check” process.
Under card check, union organizers bypass the secret ballot election process and instead collect cards face-to-face from employees that are then counted as “votes” for the union. Without the privacy of a secret ballot vote, many workers report being pressured, bullied, or threatened into signing, which is among the reasons why card check has long been recognized as inherently unreliable and abuse-prone.
Foundation-Backed 2020 Rule Let Over 1,000 AT&T Workers Nix Union Card Checks
The 2020 Election Protection Rule reformed several rules that union officials manipulate to trap workers under monopoly “representation,” including by giving employees a way to challenge card check unionization with a secret ballot election. Foundation staff attorneys assisted AT&T employees in five states to do that in advance of the Biden-Harris Labor Board’s cynical repeal of the rule.
First, in Tennessee, AT&T employee Denis Hodzic filed a petition signed by two-thirds of his coworkers in the unit seeking a secret-ballot vote to remove the CWA union, after CWA agents installed themselves over 100 AT&T In-Home Experts by card check. Initially CWA union officials argued the election should be permanently blocked because the union had already merged the workers into a larger bargaining unit with thousands of other AT&T workers.
CWA Bosses Capitulated to AT&T Workers
However, citing the Election Protection Rule, which gives workers at least 45 days to challenge a card check with a decertification petition, Foundation staff attorneys were able to win a ruling with the NLRB allowing the vote to proceed. At that point CWA officials chose not to even contest the vote, instead filing paperwork with the NLRB freeing the employees from CWA ranks apparently to avoid an overwhelming final vote against the union.
“The Election Protection Rule was essential for us to rely on as we went through the process of seeking resolution to our tricky situation,” Hodzic said of his situation. “The 45-day petition window needs to remain regardless of which group holds the majority position in Washington.”
Since then, with legal aid, around 1,000 additional AT&T Mobility employees in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas have all also successfully removed the CWA union following installation through card check. In all four states, once the decertification vote became inevitable, CWA officials simply conceded defeat rather than wait for the results of a formal decertification vote.
NLRB Repeal of Election Protection Rule Traps Workers in Union Ranks
Despite these efforts from independent-minded employees, the Biden-Harris NLRB formally repealed the Election Protection Rule in September, dramatically expanding union bosses’ ability to block employee-requested decertification votes.
As a result, now, when workers in Hodzic’s situation attempt to challenge a card check with a secret ballot decertification, the NLRB will automatically block their vote for up to one year after a card check, which opens the door to countless other union delay tactics.
“If these AT&T employees had filed their five decertification petitions after September 30th, they would have been trapped in a union they oppose for years and likely forever,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens.
“This is yet another example of the Biden-Harris NLRB steamrolling the rights of independent-minded employees, so union bosses can expand their forced dues ranks. “Despite this setback for employee freedom, Foundation staff attorneys remain committed to helping workers trapped in union ranks they oppose,” added Semmens. “That includes helping them navigate the increasingly rigged NLRB system.”
20 Wonderful Nurseries Farmworkers Seek to Join Federal Challenge to Biased Pro-Union Boss California Agricultural Labor Law
Filing: UFW union-backed law sweeps workers into union via coercive ‘card check’ scheme and imposes forced dues in violation of First Amendment
Bakersfield, CA (February 5, 2025) – A group of 20 employees of food and drink company Wonderful Nurseries’ Wasco, CA, facility have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging a California law that will force them under the control of United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials, to whom they have strenuously objected. The employees, who last year were subject to an aggressive “card check” unionization campaign from the UFW, are receiving free legal aid in their effort to defend their rights from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The federal lawsuit the workers seek to join was filed by Wonderful Nurseries against the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), and challenges the ALRB’s “mandatory mediation and conciliation” (MMC) process, which follows the ALRB’s highly-suspect certification of the UFW as the monopoly bargaining representative of the workers. The workers were denied intervention in Wonderful Nurseries’ state court lawsuit challenging the card check certification last July, one week before the court enjoined further proceedings based upon the certification. That lawsuit contends that UFW union agents claimed majority support by submitting to the ALRB union authorization cards that they had fraudulently obtained from workers.
As part of their motion to intervene in this new federal suit, the workers have also filed a proposed intervenors’ complaint detailing even more rights violations by the ALRB. The employees’ filing points out that the Wonderful Nurseries workers must be allowed to vindicate their own rights, which are inherently impacted by the lawsuit.
California labor law mandates that the ALRB should immediately certify a union as monopoly bargaining agent if it submits union cards from a majority of workers, even if there are objections as to how the cards were collected. “Card check” denies workers their right to vote in secret on whether they want a union, and instead allows union officials to demand union authorization cards directly from workers. Past Foundation-backed legal action by Wonderful Nurseries employees at the ALRB detailed the threats and discriminatory behavior that union agents used to obtain the cards.
The Wonderful Nurseries employees’ complaint and motion to intervene, filed by Foundation staff attorneys, joins Wonderful Nurseries’ challenge to the “mandatory mediation and conciliation” provisions of California labor law. Those provisions would force UFW officials and Wonderful Nurseries management to finalize a union contract that will almost certainly subject the workers to UFW union boss control for three years and payment of forced union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs.
“[T]he Employees seek this Court’s immediate intervention to protect their fundamental liberty interests, especially their freedom of association between and amongst themselves, and with their employer, and their rights to be free from State-compelled monopoly representation by a labor organization not legitimately chosen by a majority of employees, and from State-mandated payment of union dues or fees,” the complaint reads.
Radical CA Labor Law Violates First Amendment Janus Decision by Imposing Government-Mandated Forced-Dues Contracts on Workers
The complaint points out that state imposition of such a contract on the Wonderful Nurseries farmworkers would harm their First Amendment rights, as spelled out in the landmark Foundation-won Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. “[Janus] barred state-mandated and –enforced forced-unionism schemes,” reads the complaint.
In the 2018 Janus decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that government-enforced union contracts that required state employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs are a violation of First Amendment free association principles. In this case, Foundation attorneys argue, the State of California would be compelling Wonderful Nurseries and the UFW union to impose a similar contract over farmworkers – one which would require them to subsidize the union or be fired. For that reason, the state government would be violating the First Amendment in the same way as happened in Janus, Foundation attorneys contend.
Employees: UFW Union Created Atmosphere of Intimidation, Discrimination During Union Campaign
Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez, who are part of the current effort, sought to intervene in this case before the ALRB, following the agency’s certification of the UFW’s dubious claims of majority support. In unfair labor practice charges before the ALRB, Chavez and Gutierrez described multiple fabrications – and even discriminatory behavior – that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID-19-related public benefits available to farmworkers required signatures on union membership cards…that union membership cards were not, in fact, union membership cards to be used in any UFW organizing efforts…presenting to strictly Spanish-speaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English…[and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented after filing charges. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union.”
“Wonderful Nurseries workers, who are desperately trying to defend their freedom from an unwanted UFW union, are finding themselves fighting not only UFW lawyers, but also the full weight of California’s top-down, draconian labor policy,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “By granting union bosses the authority to sweep workers under their control with suspect ‘card check’ campaigns, then having the government impose a forced-dues contract over the objection of both workers and businesses, California legislators have created an environment where workers’ individual rights are being crushed to promote raw, unchecked union boss power.”
Teamsters Officials Facing Federal Prosecution for Threats of Violence Against Long Beach Savage Services Employee
Worker hit union with federal charges last year for threats of violence; latest legal action of many by employees against union
Long Beach, CA (February 21, 2024) – Following federal charges against the union from Savage Services employee Victor Avila, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint against the Teamsters Local 848 union. The complaint maintains that a union agent threatened employees with violence for not supporting the union. Avila is receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
After investigating and finding merit to an unfair labor practice charge, issuing a complaint is the next step in an NLRB prosecution of a union for violating federal labor law. Avila filed an unfair labor practice charge against Teamsters Local 848 in August 2023, which led to the current NLRB action. Avila maintained that Teamsters union officials violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by intimidating employees who dissented from the union.
Federal Labor Board Slams Teamsters with Complaint for Threats of Violence
On February 9, NLRB Region 21 in Los Angeles issued a complaint against Teamsters Local 848. The complaint maintains that the union, through an agent, had “threatened unit employees with physical violence for not supporting the Union.”
“By the conduct described above…Respondent has been restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in Section 7 of the Act in violation of Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act,” the complaint says. Section 7 of the NLRA protects private sector workers’ right to refrain from union activities.
Long Beach Savage Services Employees Have Also Charged Union with Seizing Dues Money Illegally
NLRB Region 21’s complaint is the latest chapter in a long-running battle between Teamsters Local 848 union bosses and rank-and-file workers at the Long Beach Savage Services facility. Nelson Medina won a Foundation-backed settlement against the union in February 2022, which ordered Teamsters officials to pay back thousands of dollars in illegal dues they seized from about 60 of his coworkers who objected to union membership and to funding the union’s political activity.
This settlement stemmed from Medina’s unfair labor practice charges asserting that union bosses had instructed Savage Services management to fire Medina and 12 other employees if they did not complete forms authorizing full union membership and dues payment.
“Teamsters officials’ coercive and illegal behavior knows no bounds in Long Beach, where they have threatened workers with violence for expressing dissent from the union’s agenda,” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s good that Teamsters Local 848 is finally in the crosshairs of a federal prosecution. However, the years-long struggle by Savage Services workers against union officials’ blatant violations of labor law shows why California workers need more, not less, protection from union boss coercion.
“Californians and all American workers deserve the protections of Right to Work, which ensures union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary,” Mix added.
Dependable Highway Express Workers Successfully Oust Teamsters Union Officials
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
California workers claim victory in vote to remove Teamsters after union threat-mongering
Teamsters Trucked Out: John Cwiek didn’t give up the fight after Teamsters union officials tried to threaten him after he revealed info on union boss salaries. He rallied his coworkers, who sent the union packing.
ONTARIO, CA – In a victory for workplace freedom, employees at Los Angeles-based transportation company Dependable Highway Express have won their fight to remove Teamsters Local 63 union officials from their workplace. The campaign for removal was spearheaded by employee John Cwiek, who obtained support from a majority of his coworkers on a petition that sought a vote to remove the union. Cwiek received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation throughout his legal fight to remove the union he and his coworkers opposed.
Teamsters Walk Away
The initiative began when Mr. Cwiek filed a union decertification petition in March of this year, asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a secret ballot vote to strip Teamsters union officials of their monopoly bargaining power over Dependable Highway Express employees. Eventually, when it became clear the vote would be held, Teamsters officials conceded defeat and walked away from the bargaining unit rather than contest the decertification election.
Because Cwiek and his fellow employees work in non-Right to Work California, Teamsters officials were empowered to enforce contracts that forced employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of employment. With the union gone, Dependable Highway Express workers are free from both the union’s forceddues demands and the unwanted monopoly bargaining power.
The decertification effort came after the Foundation assisted Cwiek in filing unfair labor practice charges against Teamsters union officials for retaliating against him because he revealed truthful but unfavorable information about union officials to his coworkers.
Union Bosses Threatened Worker for Revealing Union Boss Salaries
In January, Cwiek sent letters to his coworkers containing details about union boss salaries — information Cwiek pulled from the Teamsters union’s public filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. In retaliation for Cwiek sending the letters, a union official appeared at Cwiek’s workplace the next day, made accusations against him, and threatened that Cwiek wouldn’t be working at Dependable Highway Express by the next contract period.
“I am deeply troubled by the blatant retaliatory actions taken by officials at Teamsters Local 63 in response to expressing the views of myself and several other hard-working drivers at Dependable Highway Express,” Cwiek commented at the time. “We will not be deterred by their bullying tactics and the baseless accusations they levy against myself and others.”
“Mr. Cwiek’s battle and the struggles of other transportation workers across Southern California show exactly why Right to Work protections are so necessary,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Workers obviously shouldn’t be forced to pay a union that engages in illegal activity, and ideally they should have full control over whether or not union officials get a cut of their paycheck.”
Employees at Petaluma, CA, and Dover, OH, Ford Dealerships Successfully Force Out Unwanted IAM Union Officials
Efforts in Ohio and California come as Biden-Harris NLRB tightens restrictions on workers voting out unions
Petaluma, CA & Dover, OH (August 20, 2024) – Employees at auto dealership Hansel Ford of Petaluma have successfully forced unwanted International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 1596 union officials out of their workplace. The victory comes after about 80% of Hansel Ford workers signed onto a petition seeking a vote to oust the union. Hansel Ford employee Gustavo Pena submitted the petition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 20 in San Francisco with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Pena’s decertification petition contained well over the 30% threshold of employee signatures needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. However, before the NLRB could schedule a union decertification vote among Pena and his coworkers, IAM union officials filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing their control over the workplace.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IAM union officials had the legal power to enforce contracts that required Pena and his colleagues to pay dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.
Now that Pena and the other Hansel Ford workers have forced the IAM union out, they are free of both union officials’ power to contract and speak for all employees in the work unit (including the majority who opposed the union) and the union’s power to force them to pay dues to support their activities.
Technicians at Ford Dealership in Ohio Also Force Out IAM Union Bosses
Foundation staff attorneys also assisted technicians at Parkway Ford in Dover, OH, in requesting a decertification election to remove IAM Local 1363 union officials from their workplace. The worker who submitted this petition, Ryan Graham, also obtained signatures from a majority of his coworkers, well in excess of the 30% needed to prompt a vote.
Before NLRB Region 8 officials could schedule a vote at Graham’s workplace, however, IAM union bosses filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing their monopoly bargaining power over the workplace. This may have been to avoid an embarrassing rejection by employees at the ballot box.
Ohio is also not a Right to Work state, meaning that IAM union officials had the power to compel Graham and his fellow technicians to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. While Supreme Court precedents like General Motors v. NLRB and the Foundation-won Communications Workers of America v. Beck prohibit union officials from forcing workers to formally join a union or pay for its non-bargaining-related activities (such as politics), many workers may prefer to decertify an unwanted union that does not respect those rights.
In nearby Michigan, Foundation-assisted mechanics from Brown Motors, a Ford dealership in Petoskey, recently voted in a “deauthorization election” to end Teamsters union officials’ forced-dues power over them. A “deauthorization election” is the only way outside of decertifying a union to end forced-dues demands in a non-Right to Work state and is petitioned for in a way similar to a decertification vote.
The new efforts come as decertification petition filings have gone up over 40 percent since 2020 (according to NLRB data) and worker interest in joining a union is at a historic low. Despite workers’ desire to get away from unions that don’t serve their interests, the Biden-Harris NLRB has just issued a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. One part of the new rule lets union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference.
“The employees from Ford dealerships in California and Ohio are just the latest examples of the many workers across the country who want to exercise their right to dissociate from union officials that they disapprove of,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That the Biden-Harris NLRB is paring back this right shows that the current administration is interested in giving its union boss political allies more power to siphon money from workers, as opposed to defending those workers’ individual rights.”
California Farmworkers Fight Back Against Lie-Ridden Union ‘Card Check’
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
UFW bosses seized power under false pretenses, now stifle any dissent
Maria Gutierrez (left) and Claudia Chavez (right) are battling powerhungry UFW union bosses’ deceptive “card check” unionization drive, which has already stirred huge opposition among their coworkers.
BAKERSFIELD, CA – Most states don’t offer union bosses the legal privilege to force agricultural workers under their monopoly bargaining control. In such arrangements, all employees in a work unit must accept the “representation” of a union regardless of whether they support or voted for the union.
This isn’t the case in California, where the perennially pro-forced unionism legislature has granted union bosses the power to thrust farm employees under union control. Not only that, the state legislature recently handed union bosses the ability to gain power in an agricultural workplace via the so-called “card check” method. Card check bypasses workers’ right to vote in secret on the union and instead relies on union authorization cards collected by union officials, who often use misinformation, threats, or intimidation to obtain card signatures from workers, including in a current National Right to Work Foundation case.
CA Labor Board Blindly Accepts Suspect ‘Card Check’ Results
Card check has glaring flaws. Despite that, if a union submits cards collected from a majority of workers in a workplace, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) will immediately declare that union to be a monopoly bargaining agent — a status that can only be challenged after the fact.
Claudia Chavez and Maria Gutierrez are two Foundation-represented workers at Wonderful Nurseries’ grapevine nursey in Wasco, CA — the largest grapevine nursery in North America. They are now fighting for their and their coworkers’ rights in a situation that demonstrates the real-life problems that card check creates for worker freedom. In April, they submitted unfair labor practice charges stating that United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials “by artifice, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, and/or coercion” got them and many of their coworkers to sign membership cards for the union, and the union falsely “represent[ed] itself as having obtained the support of a majority of the employees” afterward.
UFW Campaign Rife with Misrepresentation and Even Discrimination
“UFW union officials deceived us just so they could gain power in our workplace,” Chavez and Gutierrez commented. “Instead of just letting us vote in secret on whether we want a union, they went around lying and threatening to get cards and now are cracking down on anyone who speaks out against the union. We hope the ALRB listens to us and prosecutes the union for its illegal acts.”
Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges describe multiple lies — and even discriminatory behavior — that UFW union bosses used to get employees to sign authorization cards, including “representing that certain COVID19-related public benefits available to farmworkers required signatures on union membership cards . . . that union membership cards were not, in fact, union membership cards to be used in any UFW organizing efforts . . . presenting to strictly Spanishspeaking discriminatees union membership cards only in English . . . [and] presenting to illiterate discriminatees union membership cards and misrepresenting their content and/or significance.”
Workers Protest Illegal Union Actions Despite Crackdown on Dissent
UFW union officials’ malfeasance isn’t stopping, according to Chavez and Gutierrez’s charges. They contend that UFW bosses are illegally forbidding employees from taking back the fraudulently-obtained cards and are “engaging in a campaign of harassment, libel, slander, and intimidation against [employees who are] exercising their right of free speech and/or protest under [California labor law] to oppose UFW representation.” But it seems Wonderful Nurseries employees haven’t been deterred, as Wonderful Nurseries workers have engaged in multiple outdoor demonstrations against the union, chanting, “We don’t want a union, listen to our voices, don’t ignore us.”
As another part of the nursery workers’ battle against the UFW, Foundation attorneys represented 13 employees in a motion to intervene in Wonderful Nurseries’ separate case challenging the legitimacy of the card check drive, and now represent a total of 20 Wonderful Nurseries employees.
“UFW union officials have treated Wonderful Nurseries workers as pawns to be used in their pursuit of power, deceiving them with no regard for their rights and now engaging in retaliation against those who exercise their free speech rights against the union,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Their situation above all shows the significant problems of the ‘card check’ process, in which workers are denied a chance to vote in secret on a union and are left exposed to a multitude of illegal union tactics.”
Hundreds of AT&T Employees Across California and Texas Petition for Votes to Remove Union Installed Through Coercive “Card Check”
Union bosses bypassed secret ballot election with abuse-prone process, but hundreds of workers in each unit now back election to remove union
Texas & California (August 1, 2024) – Hundreds of In-Home Experts from AT&T Mobility locations across Texas and California have just signed onto petitions seeking elections to remove Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials from power over their workplaces.
Matthew Gonzales, an In-Home Expert for AT&T Mobility, filed a “union decertification petition” with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of his coworkers across 13 AT&T Mobility locations in Southern California. Samantha Cain, a Texas-based In-Home Expert, did the same for her colleagues across at least eight locations in Eastern and Southern Texas. Both Gonzales and Cain received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in filing the petitions.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering votes to certify and decertify unions. Gonzales and Cain each collected employee signatures on their respective petitions far exceeding the 30% threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. Both filed the decertification petitions in July in order to challenge so-called “card check” unionization campaigns that CWA union bosses foisted on their coworkers.
Under card check, union officials can bypass the secret ballot election process, which is the most secure and reliable way to determine if employees want to unionize. During a card check drive, union officials can make face-to-face demands of employees as they seek to collect union authorization cards from a majority of the workplace. This makes the process a breeding ground for coercive and intimidating tactics.
Because Texas has Right to Work protections, union officials can’t force private sector workers like Cain and her coworkers to join or pay money to a union as a condition of getting or keeping a job. That isn’t the case in California. The state’s lack of a Right to Work law lets union officials demand that workers pay union dues or fees just to stay employed. However, in both states, union officials in a unionized workplace enjoy monopoly bargaining privileges, which allow them to contract and speak for every worker in the unit – even those that voted against the union or otherwise oppose its presence.
If the AT&T Mobility In-Home Experts win both decertification elections, well over 800 workers will be free from CWA union officials’ monopoly bargaining power. They will join over 100 In-Home Experts from across Tennessee, who successfully challenged a card check in a similar effort against CWA officials in March. In all three efforts, CWA union officials have tried to “merge” units of AT&T In-Home Experts into a larger unit comprised of thousands of employees, which would effectively trap workers in the union because petitioning for a decertification vote in such a large unit would be virtually impossible.
Biden-Harris NLRB Will Soon Block Workers from Challenging Dubious Union “Card Check” Drives
CWA union officials have already used their card check “victory” to claim monopoly bargaining power over both the California In-Home Experts and Texas In-Home Experts. However, Foundation-backed 2020 reforms to the NLRB’s election rules give both sets of workers an opportunity to challenge the CWA union’s ascent to power.
Collectively referred to as the “Election Protection Rule,” the reforms permit employees to submit decertification petitions within a 45-day window after the finalization of a card check. The Election Protection Rule also prevents union officials from manipulating charges they file alleging employer misconduct to block workers from casting ballots in a decertification election, among other things.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris NLRB in Washington, DC, issued a final rule last Friday that will undo the Election Protection Rule and make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. While the rule change will not take effect in time to stop the AT&T Mobility employees from having the decertification votes they requested, it will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future.
“If Ms. Cain and Mr. Gonzales had filed their decertification petitions just a few weeks later, hundreds of AT&T Mobility workers across Texas and California would be summarily denied their right to vote out union officials who seized power over them in a hasty and coercive manner,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This is yet another example of the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to heap legal privileges on its union boss political allies, all at the expense of workers who just want to exercise their free choice when it comes to deciding who should speak for them in the workplace.
“American workers don’t deserve to be stripped of this freedom, and those who are prevented from voting out unwanted union bosses due to this cynical rule change should not hesitate to contact the Foundation to explore their legal options,” Mix added.
IUOE Union Bosses Hit With Federal Charge for Illegal Termination
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Longstanding law protects against mandatory dues deductions, formal union membership
Firestop inspector Alexandra Le isn’t going to let IUOE union bosses snuff out her livelihood over her refusal to join or support the union. She’s filed federal charges with Foundation aid.
PLEASANTON, CA – Sometimes, even the extraordinary power to demand payments from workers under threat of termination isn’t enough for union bosses, who frequently go beyond what is legal to coerce workers into membership and dues payment.
Alexandra Le, an employee of Construction Testing Services (CTS), found herself on the receiving end of such illegal demands from International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials in October. But Le is now fighting back, hitting IUOE bosses and her employer with federal charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 32 with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation.
Union Misinformed Worker About Rights
Le’s charges state that IUOE bosses got her fired after she rebuffed their demands to formally join the union. Additionally, Le’s charges maintain that union officials unlawfully deducted union dues from her paycheck without her permission and failed to inform her of her right to pay reduced union dues as a non-member — a right secured by the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court victory.
Because California lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Le and her coworkers can be forced to pay some fees to the union to keep their jobs, even if they’ve abstained from formal union membership. However, as per Beck, in non-Right to Work states, union officials can’t force nonmember employees to pay for union expenses (such as union politics) that go beyond what the union claims goes to bargaining.
Other Supreme Court precedents require union bosses to seek workers’ express consent before deducting dues directly from their paychecks.
In Right to Work states, all union financial support is voluntary and the choice of each individual worker.
Employee Demands Federal Injunction to Reverse Illegal Union-Ordered Firing
“It’s outrageous that IUOE union officials believe they can get me fired simply because I don’t agree with their organization and don’t want to support or affiliate with them,” Le said. “IUOE union officials have been far more concerned with consolidating power in the workplace and collecting dues than caring about me and my coworkers, and I hope the NLRB will hold them responsible for their illegal actions.”
Le’s charge against the IUOE union states that, after she refused to affiliate with the union, IUOE bosses “caused Charging Party to be removed from the work schedule by her Employer as of October 2nd.” The NLRB v. General Motors Corp. U.S. Supreme Court decision protects the right of workers to refuse formal union membership, even in a non-Right to Work state.
As a remedy, the charge asks the NLRB Regional Director in Oakland to “invoke its authority under Section 10(j)” of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which empowers the Board to seek an injunction from a federal court to stop IUOE and CTS management from committing the unfair labor practices.
Workers Need More Protections Against Union Boss Coercion
“Ms. Le’s case shows why Right to Work protections are important,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger.
“Even if IUOE union officials had followed federal labor law in this case, Ms. Le would still be forced to contribute to the activities of an organization she clearly doesn’t want to be part of.
“As Ms. Le’s case demonstrates, union bosses often value workers merely as sources of dues revenue and will go to extraordinary lengths to keep the money flowing,” Messenger added. “Workers deserve more protections against union boss coercion, not fewer.”
Ontario Trucking Employee Who Revealed Union Boss Salaries Hits Teamsters Union with Federal Charge After Job Threats
Worker on Teamsters officials’ threats: “We will not be deterred by their bullying tactics and baseless accusations against myself and others.”
Ontario, CA (February 6, 2024) – John Cwiek, an employee of Los Angeles-based transportation company Dependable Highway Express, has just hit the Teamsters Local 63 union with federal charges. Cwiek maintains that Teamsters union officials retaliated against him for revealing truthful but unfavorable information about the union to his coworkers. He is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
Cwiek sent letters to his coworkers in January containing details about union boss salaries – information Cwiek pulled from Teamsters LM-2 filings. LM-2s are public documents filed by unions and maintained for public access by the U.S. Department of Labor. In retaliation for Cwiek sending the letters, a union official appeared at Cwiek’s workplace the next day, made accusations against him, and threatened that Cwiek wouldn’t be working at Dependable Highway Express by the next contract period.
The federal statute that governs private sector labor relations, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), protects both employee speech critical of unions and union officials and protects employees’ right to refrain from any or all union activities if they so choose.
“[Teamsters Local 63] violated Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the Act when its agents appeared at the worksite, interrogated Charging Party regarding his protected activities, and threatened Charging Party’s employment and by making false and defamatory accusations against him in retaliation for engaging in protected activities,” reads Cwiek’s charge.
“I am deeply troubled by the blatant retaliatory actions taken by officials at Teamsters Local 63 in response to expressing the views of myself and several other hard-working drivers at Dependable Highway Express,” Cwiek commented. “We will not be deterred by their bullying tactics and the baseless accusations they levy against myself and others. I hope that the actions of the officials from Teamsters Local 63 serve as a clear example to my colleagues that the union cannot dispute the facts of their incompetence in representing us, so they must resort to intimidation and slanderous accusations. We will remain steadfast in our pursuit of a better future for ourselves and our families.”
Ontario Trucking Employee’s Charges Latest in String of Challenges to Teamster Power in SoCal
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have recently aided other trucking industry employees in Southern California oppose unwanted Teamsters union influence. In October 2021, XPO Logistics employee Ozvaldo Gutierrez and his coworkers forced Teamsters Local 63 officials out of a Fashion District-area XPO facility. Teamsters Local 848 union officials were similarly ousted by Angel Herrera and his colleagues at an Airgas facility in Ventura, CA, in September 2021. In both cases, union officials departed the workplaces before employees had an opportunity to vote them out through the NLRB’s “decertification election” process – likely to avoid embarrassing election results.
Long Beach-area Savage Services employee Nelson Medina also won a Foundation-backed settlement in February 2022 ordering Teamsters Local 848 union officials to pay back thousands of dollars in illegal dues they seized from about 60 of his coworkers who objected to union membership and to funding the union’s political activity.
“Trucking workers across Southern California continue to express displeasure with union officials’ combative and illegal behavior, which makes it all the more unfortunate that California private sector workers aren’t covered by a Right to Work law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “In non-Right to Work California, union bosses can enforce contracts that force workers to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs, meaning workers like Mr. Cwiek can be forced to fund the same union hierarchy that violates their rights.”
“While Foundation staff attorneys will fight to defend Mr. Cwiek’s rights under federal labor law, all American workers should have the Right to Work freedom to decide for themselves whether union bosses have earned their financial support,” Mix added.
