New Jersey Cannabis Workers File Petition for Secret Ballot Vote to Remove UFCW Union Installed Through Abuse-Prone “Card Check”
UFCW union officials bypassed secret ballot election to gain power over Green Thumb Industries employees, but workers now back decertification vote
New Jersey (October 2, 2024) – Employees of Green Thumb Industries have filed a petition seeking an election to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 360 union officials’ monopoly “representation” over them. Michael Potter, a Lead Warehouse Technician for Green Thumb, filed the decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of his coworkers at five locations across New Jersey.
Mr. Potter is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys in filing the petition. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering votes to certify and decertify unions.
Mr. Potter collected more than enough employee signatures on his petition to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules, and filed the decertification petition to challenge the so-called “card check” unionization campaigns that UFCW union bosses foisted on his coworkers.
Under card check, union officials can bypass the secret ballot election process that has long been recognized as the most secure and reliable way to determine if a majority of employees want to unionize. During card check drives, union officials can repeatedly solicit and pressure workers face-to-face to demand they sign union authorization cards, which are then counted as “votes” to impose the union on workers. The process is a breeding ground for coercive and intimidating tactics.
New Jersey’s lack of a Right to Work law lets union officials demand that workers pay union dues or fees just to stay employed. Additionally, 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 Mr. Potter and his coworkers win the decertification election, around 275 workers will be freed from UFCW union officials’ monopoly bargaining power. “Many of us believe the UFCW does not advance our interests and that we would be better off without the union in our workplace,” commented Potter. “We simply seek a secret ballot election that was denied to us when the union was installed, so we can determine what the majority of Green Thumb employees want.”
Petition Filed Days Before NLRB Strips Workers of Right to Challenge “Card Check” Drives
The workers at Green Thumb Industries are able to challenge the union’s installation via a card check due to the Foundation-backed 2020 reforms to the NLRB’s election rules. Collectively referred to as the “Election Protection Rule,” one of the key elements of the reforms was to allow employees to submit decertification petitions to force a secret ballot vote after a union gains power through card check.
Under the rules, workers had a 45-day window to petition for a secret ballot decertification vote. In the event that a notice about the window was not posted, workers retained their right to decertify indefinitely.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris NLRB in Washington, DC, issued a final rule that goes into effect September 30, which 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. Had the Green Thumb Industries employees filed their decertification petition after September 30th, they would have been blocked from holding the secret ballot vote because the NLRB-created “contract bar” blocks decertification for up to three years when a union contract is in place, as is the case currently at Green Thumb.
“If Mr. Potter had filed his decertification petition just a week later, workers at Green Thumb Industries would be 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.
AT&T Employees Nationwide Continue Winning Efforts to Remove Unwanted CWA Union Bosses Imposed Through ‘Card Check’
Mississippi and Louisiana AT&T Mobility employees seek to join others in California, Tennessee and Texas who have successfully ousted the CWA
Mississippi & Louisiana (September 5, 2024) – In-Home Experts from AT&T Mobility locations across Mississippi and Louisiana have joined together to file petitions seeking elections to remove Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials from power in their workplaces. The two groups of AT&T employees seek to join with hundreds of other AT&T workers in California, Tennessee and Texas who have already won their efforts to remove the CWA. All five groups of employees received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Michael Swift, an In-Home Expert for AT&T Mobility, filed the “decertification petition” with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of his coworkers across four AT&T Mobility locations in Mississippi. Marquita Jones, a Louisiana-based In-Home Expert, did the same for her colleagues across four Louisiana locations.
If the AT&T Mobility In-Home Experts win their decertification efforts, they will join well over 800 AT&T employees from across California, Texas, and Tennessee, who have also successfully challenged CWA card checks. 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.
In Tennessee and elsewhere, CWA union officials argued the units of AT&T In-Home Experts who had been unionized through card check were already “merged” into a larger unit comprised of thousands of employees, which would effectively trap workers in the union in perpetuity because petitioning for a decertification vote in such a large, spread out unit would be virtually impossible.
Fortunately, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys successfully countered CWA lawyers’ “merged unit” gambit, resulting in the votes being scheduled. Faced with an inevitable vote among the workers, in Tennessee, California and Texas, CWA officials conceded defeat instead of facing a decertification vote.
Biden-Harris NLRB Will Soon Block Workers from Challenging Dubious Union “Card Check” Drives
CWA union officials used the card check process to claim monopoly bargaining power over AT&T In-Home Experts in California, Tennessee, and Texas. However, Foundation-backed 2020 reforms to the NLRB’s election rules permitted all three sets of workers to successfully 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 in late July 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 after the repeal takes effect at the end of September.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering votes to certify and decertify unions. Both employees filed the decertification petitions in August with signatures from more than the 30% of employees required, and both seek to challenge so-called “card check” unionizations that CWA union bosses foisted on their coworkers.
“If Mrs. Jones and Mr. Swift had filed their decertification petitions just a few months later, they would be trapped in a union they oppose, denied even the chance at decertification vote for years and likely forever,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “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.
“American workers don’t deserve to be stripped of this freedom, and with the changes set to take place in weeks, employees seeking a vote to remove an unwanted union should act quickly,” added Mix. “Those who are inevitably prevented from voting out unwanted union bosses due to this cynical rule change are also encouraged to contact the Foundation to explore their legal options.”
Foundation-Backed Workers Push Back Against UAW Bosses’ Coercive Tactics
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.
New Jersey ouster of UAW comes as union bosses wage aggressive nationwide campaign
Fain’s Bane: Michael Oliver and his Nissan parts distribution coworkers ousted UAW officials even after they’d tried to force a new contract on the workplace. UAW President Shawn Fain had no response after Oliver’s victory.
SOMERSET, NJ – United Auto Workers (UAW) union bosses this April and May continued marching forward their multi-million-dollar campaign to get auto workers from traditionally nonunion plants under their control. They’ve met with only mixed success — most recently a union election at Mercedes-Benz’s large plant in Vance, Alabama, saw nearly 600 more workers vote against UAW control than for it.
Meanwhile, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys helped a large group of New Jersey employees oust the UAW after they’d seen the union’s agenda up close. Michael Oliver and his coworkers successfully exercised their right to vote UAW bosses out of a Nissan parts distribution plant in Somerset, New Jersey. Nearly 70% of the workers who participated in the “decertification vote” at the Nissan facility voted to send the Detroit-based union packing.
“UAW union officials were far more concerned with hoarding power in the workplace than communicating with or listening to workers,” Oliver told The Detroit News of his and his colleagues’ effort. “They kept us completely in the dark about contract negotiations, and treated anyone in the workplace who opposed their agenda or questioned their leadership with a huge amount of arrogance, contempt, and even intimidation.”
Oliver submitted a decertification petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in early April, asking the federal agency to hold a vote at his workplace to remove the union. The petition contained signatures from enough of his coworkers to trigger a vote under NLRB rules. The vote took place on April 24.
Even in the midst of widespread worker opposition, UAW officials tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to manipulate NLRB processes in order to remain in power at the Nissan parts distribution plant. Shortly after Oliver submitted the decertification petition, UAW union officials announced that they had ratified a new union contract with Nissan management.
The NLRB’s dubious “contract bar” allows union bosses in many cases to quash decertification efforts for generally up to three years while a union contract is in effect. However, the contract bar didn’t stop Oliver and his coworkers’ requested election, because union officials weren’t able to reach a monopoly bargaining agreement with Nissan before Oliver filed his petition.
Shawn Fain Lost for Words After Nissan Workers Oust UAW Union
Oliver and his coworkers’ endeavor caught UAW President Shawn Fain off-guard. Fain told The Detroit News “I don’t have a response, because that kind of happened under the radar” and claimed that the company somehow played an illicit role in influencing the workers to kick out the union. However, there’s no evidence to support that claim, and UAW officials filed no objections to the election despite having ample time to do so.
Philly-Area Dometic Workers Fight Illegal UAW Strike Threats
Meanwhile, UAW chieftains at the Philadelphia-area plant of auto accessory manufacturer Dometic are facing new worker-filed federal charges for sending a mass text to employees illegally threatening their employment if they exercise their right to continue working during a strike.
These new charges come after several Dometic employees already hit the UAW with charges accusing the union of imposing unlawful disciplinary procedures on them simply because they resigned membership in the union.
Mario Coccie, the Dometic worker who filed the latest round of federal charges against the UAW with free Foundation legal aid, was also in the group of workers who initially charged the union with illegally penalizing workers who resign membership. “The information in this text reveals union officials’ real intentions, which is to hurt anyone willing to stand up for themselves,” commented Coccie. “What is happening in this case is completely unjust.”
“With UAW union bosses spending millions of dollars to expand their influence to nonunion facilities around the country, it’s important to remember that workers who have experienced UAW officials’ ‘representation’ often end up resenting it,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “Nissan employees in New Jersey and Dometic workers in Pennsylvania are prime examples of this, and their situations demonstrate above all that workers must have more leeway in disaffiliating with or completely voting out union bosses whose agendas harm the workers.”
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.”
Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s Employees Seek Vote to Remove SEIU-Backed Union Officials from Store
Trader Joe’s employee testified before U.S. House in May about underhanded union tactics and divisive organizing campaign
Hadley, MA (August 12, 2024) – Employees at the Hadley, MA, location of grocery chain Trader Joe’s have submitted a petition seeking a workplace election to remove the Trader Joe’s United union, an affiliate of the large Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford submitted the petition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 in Boston with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
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. Stratford’s decertification petition contains employee signatures well over the 30% threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. If a majority of Stratford’s coworkers vote against the Trader Joe’s United union, it will lose its bargaining powers in the workplace.
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SEIU union officials have the legal privilege to enforce contracts that require Trader Joe’s employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of their monopoly bargaining and forced-dues powers.
“Officials of this union have sowed division and smeared both our workplace and anyone who dissents from the union’s agenda pretty much from the time the campaign began to unionize the store,” commented Stratford. “This isn’t what I believe the majority of my coworkers want or deserve, and despite the union’s pushback on this effort, we will fight to ensure that our colleagues can exercise their right to vote on whether we want to be represented by this union.”
Employees Widely Report Deceptive and Divisive Tactics by Union Bosses
Trader Joe’s employees who back the union decertification effort have commented frequently on the controversial and deceptive tactics that SEIU-backed agents used to establish the union in the workplace. Michael Alcorn, a worker at the Hadley, MA, store, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce in May that union organizers tried to foist union control of the workplace through “card check” – a process that bypasses the NLRB’s secret ballot election system and lets union officials aggressively solicit “cards” that are later counted as votes for the union – and refused to meet or even talk with workers who were skeptical of the union’s agenda.
Alcorn reported to the Committee that the union’s campaign also included “inaccurate and incomplete press releases creating false narratives about our workplace, to promote [union officials’] own agenda and personal vendettas” and a general message that “if [employees] don’t vote for the union, they don’t care about their coworkers.” Stratford, the Trader Joe’s employee who filed the petition, described the situation similarly, saying that “immediately the workplace dynamic became a ‘two-side’ thing where if you weren’t going to put a [union] pin on…then you were not going to be acknowledged.”
Biden-Harris NLRB Just Finalized Rule Making It Harder for Workers to Eject Unwanted Unions
The Hadley Trader Joe’s workers’ efforts come as the Biden-Harris NLRB has announced 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, including by letting union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference. While the Trader Joe’s employees’ petition will be unaffected by the rule change, the new policy will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future.
“The situation at the Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s store shows exactly why workers’ right to vote to remove a union they oppose must be protected,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “During a union campaign, union officials often employ aggressive tactics and ‘us vs. them’ or hate-the-boss rhetoric that cause division and prioritize union bosses’ agenda over workers’ freedoms and individual choices. Workers deserve an opportunity to petition for a vote to oust a union that they feel has unfairly ascended to power or simply isn’t serving workers’ interests.”
Tennessee AT&T Workers Avert ‘Card Check’ Catastrophe with Foundation Aid
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
CWA union officials tried to lock workers in inescapable unit without vote
President Biden, a longtime ally of radical CWA union officials, has stocked the National Labor Relations Board with ex-union lawyers who are manipulating labor law to give union bosses more options to trap workers in unions without a vote.
TENNESSEE – Over the years, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have successfully represented countless workers across the country who have opposed union officials’ attempts to force them under monopoly bargaining via the coercive “card check” process. Unsurprisingly, workers prefer to cast ballots in secret, as opposed to having that right snatched in favor of a scheme where union bosses can intimidate workers into signing a card “authorizing” union control.
Fortunately, workers can turn to the Foundation for free legal aid in fighting coercive card check unionization. For example, in March, Denis Hodzic and his fellow In-Home Experts from AT&T Mobility locations across Tennessee successfully challenged a card check campaign by Communications Workers of America (CWA) union bosses that would have almost certainly confined them in the union for the rest of their careers with the company.
Union Bosses Tried to Trap Workers, Then Fled When Faced with Actual Vote
CWA agents installed themselves over Hodzic’s work unit — which was comprised of over 100 AT&T In-Home Experts — by card check. Shortly after, however, Hodzic filed a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a “decertification vote” to remove the union. Roughly two-thirds of his work unit signed the petition demanding a secret-ballot vote on the union’s presence.
CWA union officials filed objections in an attempt to stop the election, but an NLRB Regional Director rejected these and ruled that a decertification election should go forward. Before the vote could occur, CWA union officials filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing their control over the workers — likely to avoid an embarrassing rejection by employees at the ballot box.
Had Hodzic and his coworkers’ effort not succeeded, NLRB documents indicate that they would have been integrated into a nationwide bargaining unit comprised of thousands of employees, which would have made petitioning for a vote to kick out the union virtually impossible.
Biden NLRB Boosting Card Check Despite Unreliability
Cases like Hodzic’s serve as potent reminders that card check doesn’t represent the true will of workers vis-à-vis bringing in a union. Even AFL-CIO organizing guidelines admit that employees often sign cards during a card check to “get the union off my back.”
Despite this, the Biden NLRB is rapidly increasing union bosses’ ability to corral workers into a union via card check while cutting down workers’ ability to vote in secret-ballot union elections. In the August 2023 Cemex decision, the agency greatly expanded union bosses’ power to overturn elections that don’t go in their favor if an employer requests such an election to challenge a card check.
The Biden NLRB is also conducting rulemaking to overturn the Election Protection Rule (EPR), a set of Foundation-backed reforms that the NLRB adopted in 2020. The EPR permits employees to submit decertification petitions within a 45-day window after the finalization of a card check. This process was originally established by Foundation attorneys in the 2007 Dana Corp. NLRB case. Though this decision was later overturned by the Obama NLRB, “Dana elections” were codified in the EPR.
Hodzic and his colleagues were able to request their election under the auspices of this policy.
“The NLRB Election Protection Rule was essential for us to rely on as we went through the process of seeking resolution to our tricky situation,” Hodzic commented. “The 45-day petition window needs to remain regardless of which group holds the majority position in Washington . . . . [W]e hope that lawmakers see the necessity of having this rule in place, and that both unions and employers abide by the laid-out NLRB processes to ensure fair representation and protection of workers.”
“While Mr. Hodzic’s story had a happy ending, his situation illustrates just how dire things will get once the Biden NLRB’s anti-freedom agenda is fully realized,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “While American union bosses may desire a world in which they can force employees into inescapable work units without even a vote, Foundation attorneys will continue to fight for workers’ right to choose freely whether they want union control or not.”
DC-Area ‘Union Kitchen’ Employees Vote 24-1 to Remove UFCW Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation now defending workers against union attempt to overturn employee vote
Union Kitchen, a unique grocery concept that helps local DC entrepreneurs get their food products to market, was the target of a dangerous UFCW picket scheme.
WASHINGTON, DC – Ashley Silva, an employee at independent DC-area food store Union Kitchen, could sense in July 2023 that her coworkers had had enough of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in their workplace.
UFCW union officials had been ordering contentious boycotts and pickets on the stores, and some of the demonstrations even required police intervention after union picketers blocked store exits.
“The vast majority of the workers at Union Kitchen are sick and tired of the UFCW’s picketing, harassment of employees, and constant disruptions of our day-to-day work life,” Silva said at the time.
Despite Searing Worker Rejection, UFCW Bosses Trying to Cling to Power
With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Silva filed a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), asking the federal agency to hold a vote among the employees of Union Kitchen’s five stores on whether the union should be ousted. The vast majority of her coworkers signed the petition.
UFCW union officials levied allegations against Union Kitchen management in an attempt to stop the vote from happening. Despite some delays, Silva and her coworkers cast ballots in October 2023, and a January 2024 vote count revealed that she and her colleagues had voted against the union 24-1.
The union challenged eight employee ballots, meaning the full tally of votes against the union is most likely 32-1.
Once the NLRB certifies this election result, Silva and her coworkers will be free of the union. However, in an attempt to stop this, UFCW officials continue to press the “blocking charges” against Union Kitchen management that they filed at the NLRB before the vote, and have also piled on objections to the election that contain the same basic accusations as the blocking charges.
Blocking charges are often unverified or unrelated charges of employer misconduct that union officials can manipulate to stall a ballot count or a certification of results in a union decertification case.
If the NLRB issues a complaint against an employer based on a union’s “blocking charges,” the decertification process is halted.
Foundation Will Fight UFCW Bid to Overturn Vote
Foundation staff attorneys are defending Silva and her colleagues’ victory at the ballot box from UFCW union officials’ bald-faced attempts to oppose their will.
“We’re happy that Ms. Silva and her coworkers were finally able to exercise their right to vote out a union they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “It’s unfortunate, though hardly surprising, that despite such an overwhelming rejection UFCW union officials won’t take a hint and stop attempting to impose their unwanted so-called ‘representation’ on Union Kitchen employees.
“The Foundation is proud to defend Silva and her coworkers against these union tactics as they seek freedom from coercive unionism,” Semmens concluded.
