Legal Aid Lawyer Hits Union and NYLAG With Charges for Religious Discrimination and Labor Law Violations
Employer and union officials ignored request for religious accommodation and seized union dues in violation of lawyer’s Jewish faith
New York, NY (December 9, 2025) – Felicia Gaon, a legal aid attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), has just filed federal charges against both NYLAG and the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA)/United Auto Workers (UAW) unions for religious discrimination, failure to accommodate her religion, and unlawful deductions of dues. Gaon maintains that both ALAA and NYLAG officials ignored her requests for a religious accommodation from the requirement that she pay union dues as a condition of her employment. Instead, they illegally seized money from her paycheck without her authorization. Gaon is receiving free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation.
Gaon filed parallel sets of charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law in the private sector, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which prosecutes discrimination in the workplace. Gaon notes in her charges that she is “an Orthodox Jew with strong familial and religious ties to the Nation and Land of Israel” and her faith “prevents [her] from joining or financially supporting a union that directly or indirectly supports the destruction and annihilation of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.” She reports to have never signed any union membership or dues-deduction-authorization documents since beginning work for NYLAG.
UAW Unions and NYLAG Have Obligations to Provide Religious Exemption to Union Dues Payment
New York lacks Right to Work protections for its private-sector employees, meaning that union officials can impose contract provisions that require workers to pay union fees or be fired. However, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandates that both union officials and employers provide reasonable accommodations to workers who submit sincere religious objections to financially supporting a labor union. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) also forbids seizing dues money directly from employees’ paychecks without their written authorization.
Gaon’s charges state that, shortly after NYLAG hired her, she submitted a letter to the treasurers of both the ALAA and the UAW “explain[ing] my religious faith and how it prevented me from joining or financially supporting the Unions…My letter also placed NYLAG on notice of my need for a religious accommodation.”
However, her charges note that after Gaon received her first paycheck, “[it] showed that NYLAG had deducted union dues and initiation fees.” Gaon subsequently retained Foundation staff attorneys and sent letters to officials of NYLAG, the UAW, and the ALAA, asking them to refund the money that they illegally seized from her paycheck and to stop all further deductions from her paycheck while her request for a religious accommodation is being processed.
NYLAG Management Illegally Seized Dues Again After Worker Made Valid Request
Aside from a token acknowledgment of her request, Gaon’s charges note that she has not received any other communication from her employer or a union official regarding the religious accommodation. And after she sent her letter, NYLAG once again deducted full union dues from her paycheck. By seizing dues illegally from her wages, Gaon’s charges argue, both union bosses and NYLAG management “discriminated against my religious beliefs” and “failed to accommodate my religion.” Union officials and her employer have never laid out any way in which she can be accommodated going forward.
“Ms. Gaon’s case shows the damaging reality of forced unionism: Union bosses often push extreme and divisive political agendas rather than focus on being constructive and effective in the workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This has horrendous results for religious workers, who often must obtain legal help to battle both union bosses and management to exercise what limited rights they have to disassociate from a union. Even then, current law forces them to be ‘represented’ by union bosses whose ideology they find abhorrent, demeaning, and unconscionable.
“Foundation attorneys have successfully defended many employees and graduate students against being forced to fund union bosses who push positions that violate their beliefs,” Mix added. “Workers should be free to say ‘no’ to funding union bosses they oppose for any reason, religious or otherwise, which is why every American deserves the protection of a Right to Work law.”
NY Starbucks Barista Asks Federal Labor Board to Restore Employees’ Right to Vote Out SBWU Union Officials
SBWU union bosses prevented worker-requested union removal vote by filing unverified charges, never demonstrated link to worker effort
Niskayuna, NY (September 12, 2025) – Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban is asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to overturn federal policies that are preventing her colleagues from having a vote to remove unwanted Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. Kuban is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Kuban’s effort to remove SBWU from the Niskayuna Starbucks began in February, when she submitted a petition backed by her colleagues asking the NLRB to hold a decertification vote at their store. Despite Kuban’s petition containing enough employee signatures to trigger a vote under NLRB rules, regional NLRB officials dismissed her petition and denied her colleagues their right to vote on the union’s continued control.
Kuban’s latest NLRB filing challenges the dismissal of her decertification petition. Regional NLRB officials issued the dismissal due to alleged unfair labor practice charges that SBWU bosses filed against the Starbucks Corporation at the national level. Her Request for Review argues that the NLRB violated employees’ due process rights by tossing her petition without a hearing into whether the allegations had anything to do with workers’ desire to oust the union at her location. It also contends that the NLRB’s Rieth-Riley precedent – which lets union bosses manipulate such allegations (also known as “blocking charges”) to derail worker-requested decertification votes entirely – is inconsistent with federal law.
Starbucks Employee Challenges NLRB Policy That Lets Union Bosses Block Votes
The NLRB’s Rieth-Riley decision in 2022 permits the agency to make so-called “merit-determination” dismissals of decertification petitions. Such dismissals let NLRB officials stop union decertification elections entirely – and invalidate already-cast ballots – based on union boss-filed “blocking charges” that haven’t even been litigated yet. Kuban’s brief explains that the ruling is at odds with federal labor law, which mandates that the NLRB conduct an election if employees submit a valid decertification petition.
“This is inconsistent with the plain language of [National Labor Relations Act] Section 9(c), which states what the NLRB ‘shall’ do, a nondiscretionary term,” the brief says. “The Board…should overturn Rieth-Riley’s merit-determination [ruling]….”
The Request for Review also explains that even under existing NLRB cases – including Rieth-Riley – the dismissal of Kuban’s decertification petition is not justified. NLRB case law doesn’t allow the dismissal of employees’ decertification petitions unless there is an outright refusal by an employer to negotiate with union officials, the brief says, which is not the case in Kuban’s situation. Furthermore, the NLRB’s Saint Gobain decision, won by Foundation staff attorneys, holds that “an evidentiary hearing is required when a union alleges that an employer’s unfair labor practice caused disaffection with the union.” Kuban never got such a hearing in her case, meaning she “has been significantly disadvantaged in defending her petition, to the point of being denied due process of law,” the brief says.
Trump NLRB Can Use Case to Defend Workers’ Freedom
Earlier this year, Rayalan Kent, a Foundation-backed asphalt worker in Michigan whose union decertification effort was stifled in the Rieth-Riley case, submitted a brief to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This brief defended his employer (Rieth-Riley Construction Company) in a case over its refusal to negotiate with International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) officials. IUOE bosses had dredged up years-old unfair labor practice charges to cancel the counting of Kent and his coworkers’ already-cast election ballots in 2022. Kent is now urging the Sixth Circuit to use the current case against his employer to undo the disastrous “merit-determination” doctrine, and order the NLRB to finally count his colleagues’ ballots.
“The NLRB’s so-called ‘merit-determination’ dismissal policy serves no purpose other than letting union officials block workers’ right to make a free decision on whether they want union monopoly ‘representation’ in their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Kuban speaks for countless independent-minded workers across the country in seeking to eliminate this unfair policy. Upon confirmation, President Trump’s new appointees to the NLRB should prioritize cases like hers, and defend workers’ freedoms from union bosses’ attempts to gain more control over their working lives and pocketbooks.”
Hudson Valley Farmworker Challenges PERB Official’s Dismissal of Employee Petition Seeking Removal of UFW Union Officials
Porpiglia Farms workers have been restrained for almost a year from voting union out of farm, new brief challenges suspect union “blocking charges”
Marlboro, NY (August 25, 2025) – Ricardo Bell, an agricultural worker at Porpiglia Farms in the Hudson Valley, is urging New York’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in Albany to overturn a lower board official’s refusal to process a petition he and his coworkers backed seeking a union removal vote. Bell and his colleagues petitioned the PERB to hold a vote to remove United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials from power at Porpiglia Farms, and are receiving free legal aid in their effort from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The PERB is the New York state agency responsible for enforcing labor law in the agricultural sector, a task that includes administering votes to install (“certify”) and remove (“decertify”) unions. Despite the fact he submitted a petition containing enough of his colleagues’ signatures to trigger a union decertification vote, Bell’s latest filing reports that the PERB’s Acting Director of Private Employment Practices and Representation refused to process his petition on the basis of four unproven claims of wrongdoing that UFW union officials filed against Porpiglia Farms management.
At both state and federal labor boards, union officials often file such allegations (usually called “blocking charges”) to stop workers from exercising their right to vote a union out of power at a workplace – even without evidence showing any connection between the employer’s alleged conduct and workers’ desire for an election. Because New York lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, union bosses have the power to enforce contracts that require workers like Bell and his colleagues to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in 26 states with Right to Work laws, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.
Farmworker Argues PERB Shouldn’t Let Union Bosses Block Union Removal Election
Bell’s latest filing consists of exceptions to the PERB Acting Director of Private Employment Practices’ decision denying his request to process the petition. It states that the decision is unfounded because nothing in New York’s agricultural labor law or in the PERB’s policy authorizes the use of blocking charges to stop an employee-requested decertification election.
The brief argues that the PERB’s policy “is punitive, punishing the employees for conduct they cannot control… Employees should be free to choose their representative. Blocking charge delays prevent employees from exercising that right to choose.”
Bell’s brief also contends that the Acting Director’s decision violated a basic standard that PERB itself stated in an earlier case involving Bell and his coworkers. In that case – another union decertification attempt that was dismissed on different grounds – the PERB issued a decision explaining that not all charges of employer misconduct justify barring employees from exercising their right to vote out a union, and that if a blocking charge policy were to be applied, union officials must allege conduct that actually harms employees’ ability to choose for or against a union. Now the Acting Director’s dismissal of Bell’s newest decertification petition flies in the face of that standard, Bell’s brief explains, because it “failed to analyze the facts of the four charges” and makes no attempt to show how they might have affected the employees.
PERB Never Gave Employee Opportunity to Respond to Dubious Union Charges
Bell’s brief further points out that the Acting Director dismissed his union decertification petition without holding any formal fact-finding proceedings, and that the PERB agents provided Bell with the union’s blocking charges very late in the game – meaning he was deprived of any meaningful chance to challenge the allegations that blocked his election.
“Whether at the state or federal level, so-called ‘blocking charge’ policies do the exact same thing: Give union bosses the opportunity to stop the workers they claim to ‘represent’ from exercising their right to have an election they have properly requested,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “In non-Right to Work states like New York, these delays often mean that union officials can continue to siphon dues money from employees who have already expressed substantial interest in voting them out.
“Mr. Bell and his coworkers’ attempts to vote out the aggressive, politics-obsessed UFW union have been stalled for over a year now, which shows, clearly, how New York’s agricultural labor laws squash workers’ free choice simply to empower union bosses,” Mix added.
Bell and another New York farm employee, Jean Estrame, are also seeking to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging New York State’s agricultural labor law (the so-called Farm Laborers’ Fair Labor Practices Act, FLFLPA) because it lets union officials bypass traditional union certification votes and sweep to power using the coercive “card check” unionization method.
Cornell University Graduate Student Files Federal Charges Seeking End to Union Boss Control Over Graduate Students
Student case attacks Obama-era federal labor board ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power
Ithaca, NY (July 14, 2025) – Russell Burgett, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical physics at Cornell University, has just launched a groundbreaking federal labor case challenging the Cornell Graduate Student Union’s (an affiliate of United Electrical) authority to maintain exclusive representation powers over him and his fellow graduate students.
Burgett, who opposes the union and is not a member, filed his charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law. Burgett’s case is a direct challenge to the Obama NLRB’s 2016 Columbia University ruling, which overturned longstanding precedent and permitted union bosses to gain monopoly bargaining powers over graduate students at private universities like MIT, Columbia, and Cornell.
While union monopoly bargaining schemes in academia were already controversial at the time of the Columbia University ruling, student opposition to the policy has spiked in recent years as union officials have pursued increasingly radical and divisive ideological activities on campuses.
Charges: NLRB Must Reexamine Union Powers Over Students, Including Forced-Dues Mandates
Burgett’s charges assert that Cornell graduate students are not “employees” under the National Labor Relations Act. For that reason, the charges say, CGSU-UE union officials’ attempts to force them to abide by a union contract – including provisions that effectively mandate the students pay union dues or fees to complete essential parts of their graduate programs – violate federal labor law.
Furthermore, Burgett’s charges contend the union contract is illegal because it forbids the university from doing business with students who abstain from union membership or union financial support. Union agreements that require an entity to cease doing business with persons who refuse to associate with the union are a clear violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
“Mr. Burgett’s case is the latest chapter in a continuing saga showing why union bosses’ one-size-fits-all bargaining schemes have no place in academia,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “At America’s elite universities, union bosses empowered by the Obama and Biden NLRBs are coercing dissenting students into funding their political radicalism and constant agitation – including Jewish students who have sincere religious objections to the anti-Israel vitriol that campus unions push.
“Forcing students to choose between completing their graduate degrees or affiliating with an ideological group they find unconscionable is antithetical to principles of academic freedom, and Mr. Burgett’s case directly attacks the Obama NLRB’s and Biden NLRB’s flawed rulings allowing such coercion to happen in the first place,” Mix added.
Farmworkers in NY and CA File Federal Challenges Against Statutes Letting Union Bosses Seize Control Without Employee Vote
Workers contend that “card check” unionization method leads to false claims of majority union support, intimidation, and constitutional violations
Washington, DC (May 27, 2025) – Agricultural workers from New York and California have just filed federal complaints to challenge laws in both states that permit United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials to force them under union control using highly suspect tactics. Both sets of workers are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
In New York, farmworkers Ricardo Bell and Jean Fenel Estrame, who work for Porpiglia Farms in Marlboro and Cherry Lawn Farms in Sodus respectively, are challenging the so-called Farm Laborers’ Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA). In California, Wonderful Nurseries employees Claudia Chavez, Maria Gutierrez, and 18 others are challenging portions of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA).
The New York agricultural employees are challenging the FLFLPA because, among other things, it lets union officials sweep to power through the coercive “card check” unionization method. The California farmworkers assert that the ALRA forces employees and employers alike to accept government-mandated union contracts after such coercion has occurred, and challenge card check itself in a similar state court case.
The card check process lacks the security of a secret ballot vote, and exposes workers to intimidation and manipulation from union officials who seek to collect enough cards to claim “majority support” among workers. Under the rules of both California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) and New York’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), a union that presents the agency with cards obtained from a majority of workers immediately gains certification as the workers’ monopoly bargaining agent.
Charges of improper behavior in obtaining this status, including union lies and coercion while collecting cards, can only be dealt with after the union is certified – if at all. Further, under both statutes, certification starts a countdown to a government-imposed union contract that can trap workers in union ranks for years.
Even worse, Bell and Estrame’s complaint argues that New York’s FLFLPA violates the U.S. Constitution because it lacks basic provisions to guard workers from union boss malfeasance. The statute “does not require that unions fairly represent employees, does not give employees a right to refrain from union activity, and does not give employees a right to file unfair labor practice charges against a union,” the complaint says.
In the Wonderful Nurseries case, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California permitted the 20 employees to intervene in a lawsuit against the ALRB. The employees’ current complaint was then filed on May 19. Meanwhile, in New York, Bell and Estrame filed a motion on May 21 seeking to intervene in a suit in which the New York State Vegetable Growers Association, Porpiglia Farms, and other farm operators are challenging the FLFLPA.
Workers Challenged Union’s Rise to Power Through Deceitful Techniques
Wonderful Nurseries employees sought to intervene in a case challenging UFW bosses’ card check organizing campaign at first before the ALRB, after the agency certified the union’s questionable 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.”
Complaint: NY Ag Labor Statute Also Disrupts Workers’ Immigration Status
In addition to citing issues with card check, Bell and Estrame’s complaint notes that the FLFLPA’s imposition of UFW bargaining control over them interferes with Bell’s legal status in the country under the H2-A agricultural visa program. “The inclusion of H2-A employees in the FLFLPA statutory scheme and in bargaining units certified by PERB under the statute is preempted by the federal government’s general power to regulate the field of immigration…” the complaint says. According to the complaint, that overreach by the NY statute violates the Supremacy and Contract Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
“These farmworkers from New York and California are challenging the use of so-called ‘card check’ organizing campaigns in the agricultural sector. But they really speak for countless workers across industries who have faced intimidation, harassment, and other rights violations during card check campaigns just so union officials can seize bargaining control over them and collect dues,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers everywhere in the country should have the right to vote in a secure secret ballot election on whether they want a union. And, just as importantly, they should have a right to refrain from union activity and challenge union boss misdeeds if a union they oppose does gain control over them. Card check is a process designed to trample workers’ individual rights.”
New York Farmworkers Seek to Challenge ‘Card Check’ & Uproot UFW Union Bosses
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Farmworkers fight union argument that New York labor law lets union bosses trap workers forever
Porpiglia Farms workers, who were targeted by an aggressive UFW ‘card check’ campaign against the farmworkers, are banding together to vote the union out and ensure that union officials reap what they have sown.
MARLBORO, NY – In 2020, the New York State Assembly passed a Big Labor-backed law that granted union officials sweeping new powers to impose their monopoly bargaining control over the state’s farmworkers. Since New York is one of 24 states that lacks a Right to Work law, the law authorizes union bosses to force farmworkers to pay union dues or else be fired.
But that’s not all: New York labor law went even further by mandating “card check” organizing, in which union officials deny workers a secret ballot union vote and instead claim majority support by submitting cards ostensibly showing worker support. These cards are often collected through pressure tactics, intimidation, or even threats.
But even that dramatic increase in power over the agricultural sector and agricultural workers is not enough for United Farm Workers (UFW) union officials.
UFW tyrants are advancing the cynical argument that, under New York law, workers can be forced into union ranks but can never escape forced unionism. They argue this to counter a recent National Right to Work Foundation-backed union decertification case for employees of Porpiglia Farms, an apple farm in the Hudson Valley of New York.
NY Fruit Farmworkers Seek Union Ouster After ‘Card Check’
Porpiglia employee Ricardo Bell submitted a petition last year in which he and his coworkers asked the New York Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to hold a vote at the orchard on whether to remove the UFW. (Despite its name, PERB is responsible for enforcing labor law in both New York’s public and agricultural sectors.)
In late 2024, Foundation attorneys filed a brief for Bell countering union officials’ absurd argument that one card check drive should lock employees in a union forever. Additionally, more Foundation-backed decertification cases are sprouting up in both New York and other Big Labor-dominated states for farmworkers who are rejecting UFW officials’ card check schemes.
Brief Challenges Theory That Workers Have No Right to Remove Incumbent Union
Bell filed his decertification petition with Foundation legal aid after UFW union officials seized power at his workplace through a hasty card check unionization drive. His newest filing attacks union bosses’ contention that once a union is certified as the monopoly union “representative” of a work unit, there can be no option to remove it.
“[New York labor law] does not indicate that employees have a single chance at self-organization,” the brief says. “If that were the case, the very action of choosing a representative under [New York labor law] would deprive employees of the ability to exercise [their rights] in perpetuity….”
Foundation-Backed Workers Battle UFW ‘Card Checks’ Across Country
Since Bell’s filing, Foundation attorneys have also assisted in a union decertification effort for workers at Cherry Lawn Fruit Farms near Rochester, NY, who were targeted by a similar UFW card check campaign. These two groups of New York farmworkers join Foundation-backed employees of Wonderful Nurseries in California in challenging the UFW’s tactics.
Wonderful Nurseries workers still have multiple unfair labor practice charges pending against UFW bosses for deceptive behavior during an early 2024 card check drive. The charges detail UFW agents lying about the true purpose of cards that they collected from workers, and harassing workers who now back an effort to vote the union out.
“The aggressive and often demeaning tactics that UFW union officials use to seize control over agricultural workers show clearly why ‘card check’ is a bad idea in the agricultural sector, the public sector, and in any sector,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger. “UFW officials are arguing that workers should have little or no chance at all to challenge a union’s ascent to power by this process.
“The idea that workers have no ability to eject a union once it is installed in power further demonstrates that this is not about workers’ choices at all, only about union bosses’ power over workers, even when workers overwhelmingly want nothing to do with union bosses’ so-called ‘representation,’” added Messenger.
Long Island Healthcare Employee Charges Union Officials With Illicit Attempt to Prevent Workers from Voting Union Out
Brief: 1199SEIU officials engaged in backchannel communications with federal labor board to block vote; same union is facing ouster effort by NJ workers as well
Long Island, NY (November 13, 2024) – Laura Gallo, a Senior Patient Representative at Sun River Health, Inc., has successfully reversed an attempt by United Healthcare Workers East (an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union) officials to snuff out a petition in which she and her coworkers are requesting an election to remove the union from Long Island workplaces. Gallo, who submitted the union decertification petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on her own in August, is now receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense 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. Gallo and her coworkers are seeking a vote that, if successful, will end the 1199SEIU union’s control over nearly 230 Sun River Health workers across Long Island, including nutritionists, nurses, call center employees, and others.
Despite Gallo’s decertification petition containing enough employee signatures to satisfy instructions provided by an NLRB agent, an NLRB Regional Director dismissed her petition in October without giving her an opportunity to address what were alleged deficiencies with her filing. The dismissal also contradicted an NLRB agent’s earlier declaration that the decertification petition was valid.
After Gallo enlisted the help of Foundation attorneys, they quickly filed a brief challenging NLRB Region 29’s dismissal of the petition, which additionally pointed out that the dismissal may have occurred as the result of illicit backchannel communications between NLRB Region 29 and 1199SEIU officials.
Now, following the Foundation’s filing, NLRB Region 29 has agreed to reconsider the petition.
Gallo and her coworkers are based in New York, which lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees. As a result, union bosses can legally enforce contracts that require workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In contrast, in Right to Work states, union membership and union financial support are the free choice of each individual worker.
A successful decertification vote strips union officials of both their forced-dues power and their ability to impose union monopoly bargaining contracts on every employee in a workplace, including those who oppose the union’s presence.
Brief: Federal Labor Board Officials Unilaterally Blocked Workers’ Petition Based on Secret Union Filing
Gallo’s brief argues that NLRB Region 29 “cannot unilaterally dismiss” Gallo’s petition because doing so would “strip Petitioner and her fellow workers of their [rights under federal labor law] to seek a representation election once they have raised a question of representation and the relevant Regional Office has approved [the petition’s signatures].”
The brief further asserts that NLRB Region 29 dismissed the petition based on documents that 1199SEIU officials covertly filed in clear violation of the NLRB’s notice requirements. “Here, the Region approved the [petition’s signatures] on August 9, 2024, and allowed the petition to proceed to a hearing all while conducting a clandestine investigation at the request of the Union without any opportunity to challenge [the regional NLRB’s determination],” says the brief. Whether rejection of the petition took place at the behest of the union or not, the brief explains, there was no legal basis for such action.
Clara Maass Medical Center Employees in NJ Also Seek to Remove 1199SEIU
The 1199SEIU union is currently facing opposition from other New York City-area healthcare workers. Foundation-backed registered nurses at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville Township, NJ, recently filed a union decertification petition seeking a removal vote against the same union. Despite having the requisite number of signatures to prompt a vote, the NLRB is preventing the nurses from voting due to unproven allegations of misconduct that 1199SEIU union officials are leveling at hospital management. Recent rulemaking by the Biden-Harris NLRB permits such allegations, also known as “blocking charges,” to stymie worker-requested decertification elections.
“Officials of 1199SEIU clearly value power far above the will and rights of the workers they claim to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Gallo stepped up on behalf of her coworkers at Sun River Health and filed a petition in which many of them expressed a desire to vote the union out. But 1199SEIU officials conducted shady proceedings behind her back to scuttle her petition and maintain their control over the workplace, likely thinking Gallo didn’t have the formal legal knowledge to fight back.
“While Foundation attorneys have scored a victory against 1199SEIU’s shameful attempt to strip Ms. Gallo and her coworkers of their right to vote on whether the union deserves to stay in their workplace, they’re unfortunately not the only employees that 1199SEIU is attempting to disenfranchise,” Mix added. “Healthcare workers in the New York City metro area and beyond should reach out to the Foundation for free legal aid in obtaining a vote to remove unwanted union officials – especially in the wake of Biden-Harris Administration rulemaking that makes it much easier for union officials to block worker-requested votes.”
New York Farmworkers Defend Effort to Vote UFW Union Out of Power in Case at NY State Labor Relations Board
UFW union officials gained power through “card check” and denied workers secret ballot vote, now stonewalling employee request for union removal
Marlboro, NY (October 8, 2024) – Employees of Porpiglia Farms, an apple grower located in Upstate New York, are taking legal action to defend their effort to remove the United Farm Workers (UFW) union from power. Porpiglia employee Ricardo Bell, who is leading the worker effort to oust the union, just filed a brief at the New York Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) refuting several arguments UFW lawyers put forth for why the employees’ union decertification petition should be dismissed. Bell is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The workers’ petition to kick the union out comes after UFW union agents foisted a hasty “card check” unionization drive on the farm employees. New York labor law mandates card check, and prohibits employers from insisting on secret ballot union elections.
Under the card check process, union officials bypass a traditional secret ballot union election and instead solicit union authorization cards directly from workers, which are later counted as “votes” for the union. Due to the lack of privacy in this method, workers are frequently subjected to pressure tactics, intimidation, or even threats by union agents.
After the UFW union gained power in the workplace using card check, Bell and his coworkers filed a union decertification petition with PERB challenging the union’s claims of majority status. PERB is New York’s agency in charge of enforcing state labor law for both the public and agricultural sectors, which includes managing representation proceedings to install and remove unions.
Union officials tried to block Bell’s petition by filing a motion to dismiss the case completely. UFW union officials claim they are entitled to an “insulated period” after the card check drive during which employees are barred from trying to remove the union. Bell’s latest filing in the case defends the union decertification petition and refutes all the arguments in the union’s motion to dismiss.
Worker Attacks Specious Union Arguments Against Letting Workers Vote to Oust Union
Bell’s brief notably attacks UFW union lawyers’ theory that once a union is certified as the monopoly union “representative” of all employees in a work unit, there can be no option at all to remove an unwanted union. “[New York labor law] does not indicate that employees have a single chance at self-organization, and once they make a choice, they are no longer permitted to make any other choice regarding self-organization,” the brief says. “If that were the case, the very action of choosing a representative under Section 703 would deprive employees of the ability to exercise Section 703 in perpetuity….”
The response brief also refutes union officials’ tyrannical contention that foisting a card check union campaign on the workplace should grant them a period of immunity from employees submitting another representation petition (including one to remove an incumbent union). “In fact, PERB’s FLFLPA regulations say the opposite…not only do the FLFLPA regulations not include an insulated period, PERB explicitly denied a request to add one via regulation,” the brief says.
In California, Foundation attorneys are aiding farmworkers from Wonderful Nurseries, the largest grapevine nursery in the U.S., in a similar situation. In unfair labor practice charges filed with the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), Wonderful Nurseries workers state that UFW union officials lied about the true purpose of cards that they collected from workers during a card check campaign that they used to sweep to power, and even presented English union authorization cards to Spanish-speaking employees whom they knew wouldn’t understand. They now report that UFW union officials are harassing and threatening employees who support an effort to vote the UFW out.
“The aggressive and often demeaning tactics that UFW union officials use to seize power over agricultural workers show clearly why ‘card check’ is a bad idea in the agricultural sector, the public sector, and in any sector,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Forcing any workers under union representation they oppose is fundamentally wrong and anti-worker, and it is especially egregious when union organizers are authorized to do so through the unreliable and abuse-prone ‘card check’ scheme.”
