Florida Wells Fargo Bank Branch Employees to Vote In Election Over Whether to Remove CWA Union Bosses from Workplace
In response to workers’ petition, the National Labor Relations Board has scheduled a “decertification” vote to end union affiliation
Spring Hill, FL (March 16, 2026) – Employees at Wells Fargo’s Spring Hill branch have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a “decertification” election to remove the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union bosses from their workplace. The workers’ efforts are spearheaded by Virginia Fenton, who filed the petition with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Fenton’s petition received more than the required threshold of her coworkers’ signatures to trigger the process for the NLRB to schedule a secret-ballot election for the workers on Monday, March 30.
The workers’ election to remove the so-called “Wells Fargo Workers United” union (an affiliate of the CWA union) will include all full-time and regular part-time tellers, personal bankers, relationship bankers, and premier bankers employed by Wells Fargo at its Spring Hill branch.
“Since the union came into our branch back in 2024, we’ve come to see how much they overpromised and never delivered,” stated Fenton. “We are sure that we will manage better without them.”
Florida is one of the 26 states with a Right to Work law that guarantees workers cannot be fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. However, even under Right to Work, union bosses can still impose monopoly bargaining control over all employees in a workplace, even those who are opposed to the union’s representation. A successful decertification would end the union’s monopoly bargaining powers.
“The Foundation is pleased to be able to assist Ms. Fenton and her coworkers as they move to exercise their rights under the NLRA,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “No American worker should be forced to affiliate with a union they oppose.”
Four Colorado Safeway Workers Slam UFCW Union Officials With More Federal Charges for Illegal Strike Fines
Charge: UFCW Local 7 unlawfully subjected nonmember employees to ‘internal disciplinary’ fines for not abiding by a union boss-ordered strike
Denver, CO (February 23, 2026) – Four employees at three separate Safeway grocery stores located near Denver have filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 union.
The workers’ charges were filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in response to union bosses illegally threatening the workers and their colleagues with fines for choosing to exercise their right to work despite a union boss-ordered strike action. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
Claire Jordan, who works at Safeway in Greeley, Rebecca White, who works at Safeway in Longmont, and Dustin Mattos and Rebecca Lawless-Mattos, who both work at a Lakewood Safeway location, are demanding that NLRB Region 27 investigate and prosecute UFCW Local 7 union bosses for violating their rights under the NLRA.
According to the charges, after the workers validly resigned their union membership in June 2025, union officials informed the workers around January 9, 2026 that they would be subject to “internal union charges…for, among other things, crossing the picket line while being a union member.”
The workers resigned their memberships in order to continue working after UFCW Local 7 union bosses ordered grocery workers at more than 40 Safeway stores and a distribution center in Colorado to strike in June 2025. Longstanding law says union bosses cannot impose “union discipline,” which frequently means four- or five-figure monetary fines, against workers who are not voluntary union members.
In addition to retaliating against nonmember workers, the charges say that UFCW Local 7 union officials have failed to comply with federal law by not providing the workers with the required financial disclosures under the Foundation-won Beck decision, which allows nonmember workers to withhold the portions of their forced dues that go to the UFCW’s political activities.
Colorado is one of the 24 states that lack Right to Work protections for workers, which allows UFCW union bosses to impose monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union fees as a condition of employment. By contrast, in Right to Work states like neighboring Arizona, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary.
The Safeway strike order came months after UFCW Local 7 had similarly ordered a strike at 79 King Soopers grocery stores in February 2025. As happened following the Safeway strike, King Soopers employees also turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for assistance in filing charges against the UFCW, in response to union officials issuing illegal fine threats against nonmembers for exercising their right to work during a strike.
The Foundation has seen a growing number of workers seeking aid in cases involving illegal retaliation from UFCW union bosses. Foundation attorneys assisted nonmember King Soopers employees targeted following a 2022 strike, and have secured numerous victories against UFCW, including for illegal strike fine threats during a union-ordered strike against Stop & Shop stores in New England.
“Once again, UFCW Local 7 union bosses are turning to threats and intimidation tactics against workers who chose to rebuff union strike orders and work to support themselves and their families,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The Foundation will continue to assist grocery workers defending themselves against these recidivist UFCW union bosses.”
Majority of Lynchburg, Virginia Manufacturing Plant Workers File Petition to Oust Chemical Union Bosses
Parker O-Rings & Engineered Seals employees petition to end union’s near 50-year “representation” at facility
Lynchburg, VA (February 17, 2026) – Natera Carter, an employee of Parker O-Ring & Engineered Seals, has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a “decertification” election to remove the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Local 845C labor union from her workplace. The petition was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions.
Carter’s petition was signed by the majority of her 51 coworkers, far exceeding the amount required to trigger an NLRB-supervised secret ballot decertification vote. The workers’ election has been scheduled for February 25th, 2026, and will include all hourly production, lab technicians, maintenance, shipping, receiving, and quality inspection employees at the Lynchburg facility. According to the petition, the union gained monopoly power over the workplace in 1980.
“The workers who decided to bring the union into this workplace are no longer here and now it is time for current employees to have our say,” stated Carter. “We’ve seen the union up close and now we’re joining together to remove it.”
Virginia is one of the 26 states with Right to Work protections that safeguard workers by making union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary. Yet, even in Right to Work states, union officials can impose exclusive bargaining control upon all workers in a workplace, even those who oppose the union.
“Virginia’s popular Right to Work law means union officials cannot have workers fired for refusing to join or pay dues to the union, but even in Virginia, workers are forced under union monopoly ‘representation’ they don’t want and never asked for,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This case and the many others like it are a reminder that in addition to the overwhelming majority of workers who choose to remain nonunion, countless others are currently forced under a union monopoly they oppose. That’s just plain wrong.”
Washington State Medical and Aerospace Materials Manufacturing Workers File Petition to Remove Machinists Union Bosses
Majority of manufacturing workers back petition to end IAM union officials’ monopoly “representation” powers
Bellingham, WA (January 30, 2026) – Albert Sherman Toribio, an employee of Trulife, Inc., has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a “decertification” election to remove International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 2379 union officials from his workplace. The petition, which a majority of workers support, was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. The workers are requesting NLRB Region 19 schedule an election so that they can exercise their right to remove the IAM from their facility.
Toribio’s petition was signed by a majority of his 58 coworkers, far more than the number of signatures required to trigger an NLRB-supervised secret ballot decertification vote.
Washington is one of the 24 states that lack Right to Work safeguards for workers, which allows IAM union bosses to impose monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. By contrast, in Right to Work states like neighboring Idaho, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary.
“We are pleased to be able to assist Mr. Toribio and his fellow employees in their effort to exercise their rights under the NLRA to hold a secret ballot election to remove unwanted IAM union bosses from their facility,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The NLRB should promptly schedule this vote so these workers can free themselves from a union that most workers want nothing to do with.”
Two Additional Heavy Equipment Operators Targeted By Operating Engineers Union Bosses File Federal Charges
Workers face unlawful IUOE union bosses’ retaliation measures for remaining employed with nonunion contractor
Lawrenceville, GA (January 9, 2026) – Two more employees of Dennis Taylor & Co., John Stroh and David Johnson, have filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 926. They now join their coworkers Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, and Chris Oaks who filed similar charges in September 2025 stating that IUOE union officials subjected them to illegal post-resignation discipline after the employees legally resigned their union memberships.
The workers’ charges were filed at the NLRB with free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
After Stroh and Johnson had resigned their memberships so they could continue working, IUOE union officials sent both workers a letter threatening them with fines for simply going to work with an employer that had been part of a “hiring hall” arrangement with the IUOE in the past.
The employees resigned their union membership after Dennis Taylor & Co. ended an arrangement requiring it to employ workers through an IUOE hiring hall. Legally, union-run hiring halls are supposed to be accessible to both union members and nonmembers seeking employment with employers that chose to make use of hiring halls to fill open roles. However, there is a long history of union officials using hiring halls to discriminate against nonmembers and coerce workers into formal union membership in order to attain employment.
IUOE union officials are allegedly pursuing illegal internal disciplinary measures against resigned former members months and years after they cut their ties with the union. Longstanding law says workers cannot face discipline for actions that occur after a worker has resigned from union membership.
Union bosses have a history of retaliating against workers with ruinous “disciplinary” fines, frequently for thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. In one recent case, Foundation staff attorneys successfully defended an Indiana electrician against an attempt by IBEW bosses to illegally levy a $1.3 million fine.
“It is unfortunate that it is necessary for more workers to file federal charges to defend themselves against IUOE union bosses’ thuggish intimidation tactics,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “They now join a growing number of their colleagues who are standing up to IUOE union officials’ illegal persecution.
“Like the vast majority of American workers, these employees simply want to work without any union affiliations, and it is outrageous that IUOE bosses are attempting to retaliate against them for making that simple choice,” added Mix.
CalPortland Fresno Ready Mix Drivers File Petition to End Teamsters Local 431 Union Boss “Representation”
Majority of workers back petition seeking to free themselves of Teamsters union officials
Fresno, CA (October 31, 2025) – Drivers of building materials company CalPortland’s Fresno Ready Mix Plant have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting that the NLRB hold a “decertification” election to remove Teamsters Local 431 from their workplace. The drivers’ efforts are spearheaded by Darrell Dunlap Sr., who filed the petition with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
Dunlap Sr.’s petition is supported by the majority of his coworkers, who also seek a secret ballot election from the NLRB to vote out the Teamsters as the drivers’ monopoly bargaining “representative.”
“This workplace has been under Teamster union control for over 20 years, so we’ve seen union officials’ actions up close for many years,” commented Dunlap Sr. “As our majority-backed petition shows, based on our extensive experience with the Teamsters, we are confident we’ll be better off without a union.”
California is one of the 24 states that lack Right to Work protections, which allows Teamsters union bosses to impose union monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. By contrast, in neighboring Right to Work states like Arizona and Nevada, union membership and union financial support are strictly voluntary.
Independent-minded workers across the United States have been leading efforts to decertify Teamsters union bosses. The Foundation has seen a marked rise in requests from workers seeking legal assistance in Teamsters decertification cases.
“The rank-and-file are the most familiar with the union officials in their workplaces, and this is just the latest of a growing number of employees who have decided to exercise their right to free themselves of unwanted so-called ‘representation,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Given Teamsters’ bosses’ intimidation tactics or worse, it is not surprising that the Teamsters are regularly the union that faces the most worker decertification drives.”
Heavy Equipment Operators File Federal Charges Against Operating Engineers Union for Illegal Retaliation
IUOE union officials unlawfully threatened “internal discipline” fines against workers who continued employment with nonunion contractor
Lawrenceville, GA (October 21, 2025) – A group of construction industry employees of Dennis Taylor & Co. have filed federal charges at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 926 alleging IUOE union officials subjected them to illegal post-resignation discipline after the employees legally resigned their union memberships.
The workers’ charges were filed at the NLRB with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act and adjudicating disputes between employers, unions, and individual employees.
The employees, Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, David Johnson, and Chris Oaks resigned their IUOE memberships months or years ago. Despite this, union officials are threatening the workers with fines, apparently for working at Dennis Taylor & Co., which once was part of a “hiring hall” arrangement with IUOE, but no longer is.
The resignations came after Dennis Taylor & Co. removed itself from an arrangement to hire employees through an IUOE union boss-controlled hiring hall. In theory, both union members and nonmembers can utilize union-run hiring halls to find employment with employers that have decided to utilize the hiring hall to fill openings. However there is a long history of union officials using hiring halls to discriminate against nonmembers and coerce workers into formal union membership in order to attain employment.
The charges filed by Michael Mitchem, Billy Johnson, and Chris Oaks each state that even before formally resigning from the union, the employees were never voluntary union members, as they had been misled into believing that union membership was mandatory. Though union officials frequently mislead workers into believing that formal union membership is required, the problem is especially prevalent when employment involves union hiring halls.
Under longstanding law, only fully voluntary union members can be subjected to internal union discipline, which often involves fines levied against workers at odds with union boss demands. Workers cannot face discipline for actions that occur after a worker has resigned from such voluntary union membership.
“Contrary to the apparent wishes of IUOE Local 926 union bosses, formal union membership cannot be required as a condition of employment, a precedent in place since the early 1960s,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It is outrageous that IUOE union officials are attempting to barge back into the lives of these workers years after they’ve legally exercised their rights, and are now illegally threatening them with fines simply for working to provide for themselves and their families.”
Workers Nationwide Urge Trump NLRB to End Policies Trapping Them Under Union Power
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2025 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
NLRB-invented policies currently allow union bosses to block worker-requested votes
Theresa Hause, an Oregon-based school bus driver, wants the Trump NLRB to end the so-called “merger doctrine” that grants union officials the power to combine workplaces into giant, inescapable mega-units.
WASHINGTON, DC – During the Biden Administration, biased, pro-Big Labor National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) bureaucrats went out of their way to undermine the idea that workers and workers alone should choose whether or not they want a union. Rolling back multiple National Right to Work Foundation-backed reforms that made it easier for workers to vote out unions they didn’t want was a prime example of this.
But the Biden NLRB’s extremism is only the latest example of how federal labor law is biased against workers opposed to union affiliation. The truth is that biased bureaucrats on the NLRB have, for decades, burdened independent-minded workers with arbitrary barriers to freeing themselves from union influence. Many of these policies — which are the inventions of NLRB decisions and appear nowhere in the National Labor Relations Act’s (NLRA) text — let union bosses block workers from exercising their statutory right to vote to remove a union.
Bus Drivers Fight Forced Dues in Huge, Inescapable Teamsters Unit
The Trump Administration taking control of the NLRB in Washington, D.C., has presented workers around the country who want to escape union influence with a new opportunity to attack these restrictions. Foundation attorneys are already helping workers lead the charge for reform to create precedents that will allow others to remove unions opposed by most workers.
Last December, Theresa Hause, a Washington State-based school bus driver, submitted to the NLRB a deauthorization petition which contained employee support well over the necessary threshold needed to trigger a vote to strip Teamsters Local 58 bosses of their forced-dues power in Hause’s workplace. Hause and her fellow drivers are employed by First Student, Inc.
She was surprised to learn during NLRB proceedings that First Student management and Teamsters union officials had covertly signed an agreement “merging” Hause’s small unit of workers into a much larger national unit, composed of thousands of Teamsters-controlled bus drivers across the country.
Because of the NLRB’s so-called “merger doctrine” policy, Hause and her colleagues are now in this “mega-unit,” and any petition to end the union’s forced-dues power (or remove the union completely) needs to contain signatures from at least 30% of the “mega-unit” — thousands of people Hause has never met — to be considered valid. The NLRB official that dismissed Hause’s petition even ruled that the fact employees were kept in the dark about this merger was irrelevant, outrageously saying “there is nothing in the merger doctrine that requires acquiescence or even notification of employees of a change in a bargaining unit.”
Hause’s Foundation-provided attorneys are challenging the merger doctrine in an appeal of Hause’s case to the NLRB in D.C., arguing among other things that the policy violates employee free choice and that it serves as a protection racket for established unions.
While Hause and her colleagues are fighting for a vote to free themselves from forced dues, attacking the merger doctrine also has significant ramifications for workers seeking to decertify a union. Foundation attorneys have represented many workers who have been shanghaied into huge, inescapable work units against their will. That includes a group of less than 10 Wisconsin First Student workers who filed a majority-backed petition to remove Teamsters officials as soon as allowed by federal law, only to be stymied by the merger doctrine because they had been secretly “merged” into a multi-company unit of around 24,000 workers in multiple states.
WV Homecare Workers Not ‘Settling’ for ‘Settlement Bar’
Meanwhile, in West Virginia, a Foundation-assisted employee of senior homecare nonprofit McDowell County Commission on Aging is attacking the NLRB’s use of another union boss-friendly policy to block his and his coworkers’ effort to kick out Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses: the so-called “settlement bar,” which lets unions and employers unilaterally agree in settlements to end employee-led union decertification efforts.
The employee, John Reeves, and his coworkers cast ballots in a July 2024 vote to remove SEIU union officials, but are now battling claims that a settlement SEIU bosses and Commission management signed should relegate those ballots to the trash bin. The SEIU and Commission entered into the settlement to end the decertification and resolve unfair labor practice allegations union agents had filed against the employer. That supposed employer wrongdoing was cited as the impetus for Reeves and his coworkers’ desire to remove the union — even though it was never admitted to by the employer nor proven by union lawyers.
Instead of letting Reeves show why the union’s accusations didn’t cause his employees’ disenchantment with the union, regional NLRB officials instead invoked the settlement bar and dismissed the decertification effort, based on the phony “resolution” of speculative charges by the union. Reeves is asking the NLRB in Washington, D.C., to review his case.
Reform Needed to Undo Coercive Policy
“Ms. Hause’s and Mr. Reeves’ cases provide just a sampling of the grand buffet of privileges the NLRB has granted union bosses over the years,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Union bosses and complicit employers should not be able to cut workers off from exercising their basic right to remove unpopular union bosses, yet that’s exactly what both the ‘merger doctrine’ and ‘settlement bar’ allow.
“If members of the Trump NLRB are dedicated to defending the rights of all American workers, they will focus not only on countering the extensive damage done to individual worker rights by the Biden Labor Board, but also on digging deeper to undo the web of non-statutory coercive union boss powers that has been created over decades,” Semmens added.
