14 Nov 2025

After Year-Long Effort, McDowell County Commission on Aging Employees Free Themselves From SEIU Union Bosses

Posted in News Releases

Majority of employees signed petition demanding Commission stop bargaining with SEIU; success follows months of union stonewalling

Welch, WV (November 14, 2025) – Following an effort lasting more than a year, employees of senior homecare nonprofit McDowell County Commission on Aging have successfully freed themselves from the control of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 1199 officials. Commission employee John Reeves spearheaded the union removal effort with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

The success follows Reeves’ submission of a petition in which the majority of his fellow employees demanded that their employer stop recognizing the SEIU as their exclusive “representative.” Reeves submitted the petition to Commission management in late October. Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), an employer may not engage in bargaining with union officials that lack majority support in a workplace. Commission management announced on November 4 that they had withdrawn recognition from the SEIU union.

West Virginia is a Right to Work state, meaning that union officials cannot enforce contracts that require workers to pay dues or be fired. In contrast, in states like neighboring Pennsylvania and Ohio that lack Right to Work protections, union officials can mandate dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union bosses have exclusive representation power over every worker in a unionized workplace, even those who voted against or otherwise oppose the union.

SEIU Officials Used Litigation to Block Workers From Voting

The effort by Commission employees to oust SEIU union bosses started back in June 2024, when Reeves submitted a union decertification petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a task that includes administering votes to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions.

Commission management and SEIU chiefs agreed to the terms of a union decertification vote, which Reeves and his coworkers participated in on July 9, 2024. However, NLRB officials held up the ballot count, claiming that SEIU officials had unfair labor practice charges pending against Commission management.

After six months of delays, Commission officials and SEIU union bosses announced they had reached a settlement in the unfair labor practice case – but a provision of that settlement stipulated that they would “not entertain a new decertification for a…period of four months.” A regional NLRB official approved this settlement in its entirety, effectively tossing out Reeves’ and his coworkers’ ballots. Reeves urged the NLRB in Washington, DC, to reverse this decision, as the regional NLRB had never proven the alleged unfair labor practices, nor had the Commission admitted to them in the settlement.

As of November 2025, Reeves’ appeal was still pending, but he and his coworkers have now successfully removed the union through a different process.

“Mr. Reeves’ and his coworkers’ situation shows that, in practice, NLRB bureaucrats will frequently stifle workers’ rights simply to advance the interests of union officials or management,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “That is antithetical to the overarching purpose of federal labor law, which is to protect workers’ free choice, not protect incumbent union bosses’ power.

“Currently, the union decertification process is overly complex and prone to legal manipulation, delays, and derailment,” Mix added. “It is in dire need of reform, and both the NLRB and federal legislators have a role to play to prevent workers from being trapped under union so-called ‘representation’ opposed by a majority of employees.”

21 Mar 2025

WV Homecare Worker Asks Federal Labor Board to Stop Gambit by SEIU and Employer to Destroy Ballots in Vote to Remove Union

Posted in News Releases

Employee attacks NLRB policy that union and employer used to “agree” to throw out ballots already cast and block future votes to remove union

Welch, WV (March 21, 2025) – An employee of senior homecare nonprofit McDowell County Commission on Aging has requested the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C., overturn a regional NLRB official’s ruling that tossed his and his coworkers’ ballots in a union decertification vote because his employer and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials agreed in a settlement to stifle the worker-led union removal effort.

The worker, John Reeves, submitted his Request for Review with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. In addition to asking the NLRB to order regional labor board officials to process Reeves’ petition for a union removal vote at his workplace, the Request for Review attacks regional NLRB officials’ application of the so-called “settlement bar” to his petition. The “settlement bar” is a non-statutory NLRB policy that lets union bosses and employers unilaterally block an employee-requested union decertification vote after finalizing a settlement.

Specifically, the Request for Review points out that the issues being settled by the union and employer – union-alleged accusations of employer wrongdoing that were never proven by the Board or admitted to by the employer in the settlement – provide absolutely no support for the idea that Reeves and his coworkers’ vote should be invalidated. The Request for Review states:

“[T]he Board has held that employer unfair labor practices can justify the dismissal of a decertification petition only if: (1) the Board holds the employer actually committed the unfair labor practices or (2) the employer admits in a settlement that it committed the unfair labor practices…Neither scenario exists here.”

Employer and SEIU Union Bosses Colluded to Eliminate Workers’ Shot at Voting Out Union

Reeves’ effort to remove the SEIU union began in June 2024, when he filed a petition asking the NLRB to administer a union decertification election at the McDowell County Commission on Aging. The petition had enough employee signatures under NLRB rules to trigger such a vote.

Commission management and union officials agreed to terms of a union decertification election and Reeves and his coworkers voted on July 9, 2024. However, regional NLRB officials announced the morning that the election took place that Reeves and his coworkers’ ballots would be impounded because of pending unfair labor practice allegations SEIU union officials had against Commission management

After continued delays from NLRB officials that prevented the ballots from being counted, Reeves sought to intervene in the union’s unfair labor practice case. Reeves wanted to demonstrate that there was no connection between the union’s accusations of employer wrongdoing and his and his colleagues’ desire to vote the union out, and thus no reason existed for regional NLRB officials to continue blocking a vote count. But the regional NLRB denied him this request.

In January 2025 – six months after Reeves and his colleagues had voted – Commission officials and SEIU union bosses entered into an agreement to settle the union’s unfair labor practice charges. Even though the regional NLRB never proved that the employer’s alleged malfeasance had any effect on the decertification effort and the Commission never admitted to such malfeasance in the settlement, the regional NLRB approved a unilateral decision by the employer and union to dismiss the decertification petition and “not entertain a new decertification for a…period of four months.”

“[The regional NLRB] dismissed Reeves’ decertification petition because the Employer settled an unfair labor practice case, even though the settlement contained no ‘admissions clause,’ and therefore the Union’s allegations were unproven and speculative,” Reeves’ Request for Review reads.

“Mr. Reeves and his coworkers, who voted months ago on whether to remove SEIU union officials from their workplace, deserve to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB’s ‘settlement bar’ policy is simply another way for self-interested union bosses to game the system and maintain control over dissenting workers, and it’s especially egregious when complicit employers and NLRB officials use it to turn speculative and unproven allegations of wrongdoing into a barrier between workers and their individual rights.”

“Workers have a statutory right under federal law to hold decertification votes, and employers and union officials should not be permitted to collusively ‘settle’ disputes by stripping workers of their right to vote to remove a union that most of them oppose,” added Mix.