After 18 Months, Mountaire Farms Workers Finally Oust Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Overwhelming vote against UFCW follows NLRB shredding of first ballots
Employees at Mountaire Farms in Delaware fought “contract bar” delays from tyrannical UFCW union officials for almost two years. Finally, they’ve overwhelmingly voted out the union.
SELBYVILLE, DE – Almost two years after their initial attempt, Mountaire Farms poultry employees in Delaware have decisively voted to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials from their workplace. The drawn-out ordeal demonstrates how the “contract bar,” a controversial National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) policy, unjustly traps workers in union ranks they oppose.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute the NLRB implements, workers possess an enumerated statutory right to remove an unwanted union through a decertification election. However, the NLRB has invented out of whole cloth a “contract bar.” The “contract bar” halts workers’ right to hold a decertification election to remove a union they oppose for up to three years after union officials and a company finalize a monopoly bargaining contract.
NLRB Chucks Workers’ Votes Citing ‘Contract Bar’
Mountaire Farms workers voted in an NLRB-supervised decertification election in June 2020, but UFCW lawyers appealed the case to the full Labor Board in Washington, D.C., and were able to get the ballots impounded. After a divided NLRB ruled for the union bosses in April 2021, hundreds of cast ballots were destroyed without being counted.
The June 2020 vote was requested by Mountaire employee Oscar Cruz Sosa, who received free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Cruz Sosa had the support of hundreds of his coworkers when he submitted his petition to the NLRB requesting a vote.
Initially, an NLRB regional official rejected union arguments that the decertification effort was blocked due to the “contract bar,” and the election was held. However, UFCW union lawyers appealed that decision to the full Board, which impounded the ballots while the appeal was considered.
Cruz Sosa’s Foundation attorneys urged the Board to reject the UFCW’s attempt to impose the “contract bar.” More importantly, they urged the Board to eliminate the bar completely because it is not found in the text of the NLRA, and serves only to protect unpopular union bosses from worker accountability. As the brief filed by Foundation staff attorneys pointed out, the only “bar” in the text of the NLRA states that workers must wait one year after an election before holding another vote, making the threeyear “contract bar” particularly egregious.
Nevertheless, in an April 2021 ruling, a divided Board sided with union lawyers, upheld the “contract bar,” and threw out the ballots cast by workers at the 800-employee facility. As a result, the employees were forced to wait almost another year, all the while subjected to forced union dues, for the “contract bar” to expire so they could restart the process for a decertification election.
Finally, without the barrier of the NLRB’s “contract bar” policy the workers submitted another petition to hold a vote to remove the UFCW in October 2021.
Landslide Vote Against Union Highlights Injustice of Anti-Worker ‘Contract Bar’ Policy
In the subsequent vote that concluded in December 2021, the workers overwhelmingly rejected the union with 356 of 436 votes counted for removing the union. The workers are finally free of unwanted union “representation,” nearly two full years after they started their effort to remove the union, which was highly unpopular among rank-and-file Mountaire Farms employees.
“The overwhelming final vote tally emphasizes the injustice of the decision to continue the Board-invented ‘contract bar,’ which resulted in the destruction of hundreds of ballots. From the outset it was clear how little support UFCW officials really had,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “This case is yet another example of how the NLRB has twisted the law to protect union boss power at the expense of the statutory rights of rank-and-file employees.”
“We’re under no illusions that the Biden NLRB, stacked with former union officials, will end this longstanding impediment to workers’ right to free themselves of an unwanted union. But this saga demonstrates why the injustice that is the non-statutory ‘contract bar’ must be ended by a future Board,” LaJeunesse added.
Workers Nationwide Press NLRB to Scrap Policy Blocking Right to Vote Out Unions
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2021 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation cases contend ‘contract bar’ must be eliminated to protect employee freedom
Foundation staff attorneys are assisting Delaware poultry workers in challenging UFCW bosses’ attempts to use the “contract bar” to trap them in union ranks.
WASHINGTON, DC – Foundation attorneys in January filed a Request for Review to the full National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, D.C. The Request defends the right of Virginia Transdev workers to have a vote to remove unpopular Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 2 bosses from power at their workplace.
The Transdev employees, who work at the Fairfax Connector bus service in Northern Virginia, now join Foundation-backed workers in Delaware and Puerto Rico, all of whom are urging the NLRB to eliminate the “contract bar.” That is a non-statutory NLRB policy which forbids employees from exercising their right to vote out an unpopular union in an NLRB-supervised “decertification election” for up to three years after their employer and union finalize a monopoly bargaining contract.
Foundation attorneys point out in each of these cases that the “contract bar” appears nowhere in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law the NLRB is charged with enforcing, and is merely the result of past union boss-friendly decisions by the Board. They also argue that the bar undermines workers’ basic right under the NLRA to remove unions that lack majority support.
“The ‘contract bar’ undermines the fundamental objective of federal labor law: Employee free choice. It makes rank-and-file employees prisoners of an unpopular union, with no way out for up to three years,” commented National Right Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This inevitably creates an environment in which, as these employees can certainly attest, it’s impossible to hold self-serving union bosses accountable because workers are denied the right to vote them out.”
Unpopular OPEIU Bosses Went Behind Workers’ Backs to Sign Contract
The petitioner in the Transdev workers’ case, Amir Daoud, submitted a petition on November 10, 2020, signed by the necessary number of his coworkers to trigger a “decertification election” in his workplace. This was after news had gotten around that an OPEIU union agent had told some employees in October he had “negotiated a new agreement” with Transdev management and “‘intended’ to sign it without a ratification vote.” Workers had already voted down an earlier union boss-promoted monopoly bargaining contract in June.
Foundation attorneys filed a Request for Review, which notes that the union agent didn’t inform Daoud and his coworkers of when he planned to approve the new contract — until after Daoud filed the petition. The new contract was signed by union agents on October 30 and Transdev representatives on October 31.
NLRB Region 5 in Baltimore dismissed Daoud and his coworkers’ decertification petition on December 22, ruling that the “contract bar” applied because the employees’ petition was submitted just after the new contract was signed, even though the employees had no way of knowing whether or when that signing would occur.
This prompted Daoud to ask the NLRB in Washington to review the case. Because Daoud recently accepted a job with Transdev outside the OPEIU’s monopoly bargaining control, the Request for Review asks the NLRB to recognize his coworker Sheila Currie as the new petitioner to represent the interests of the workers who signed the decertification petition.
The Request exposes the arbitrariness of the “contract bar,” pointing out that the NLRB Regional Director applied it “merely because the Union ‘won the race’ and signed the contract ten days” before Daoud submitted the petition, even though the petition clearly demonstrated the employees’ interest in voting the union out.
VA and Puerto Rico Cases Follow Groundbreaking Effort by DE Poultry Workers
The Virginia Transdev employees, and a Puerto Rico armored transit guard who submitted a similar Request for Review on behalf of his coworkers with Foundation aid in January, are now battling the “contract bar” like Delaware Mountaire Farms poultry worker Oscar Cruz Sosa and his coworkers. For almost a year now, Cruz Sosa and his fellow employees have been fighting United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union bosses’ attempts to use the “contract bar” to block their valid petition for a decertification vote. The Mountaire employees are now waiting for the NLRB to issue a ruling on their case.
In that case, UFCW officials claim that the “contract bar” should apply to bar any elections at Mountaire, despite an NLRB Regional Director’s decision allowing the vote because the union contract contains an invalid forced-dues clause.
When the UFCW bosses asked the full NLRB to review the Region’s order allowing the election, Cruz Sosa’s attorneys filed a brief urging that, if the Board granted review, it should use the opportunity to review the entire non-statutory “contract bar” policy. The Board is now doing just that. The UFCW union bosses are even arguing that the impounded ballots already cast by Mountaire workers should be destroyed, claiming the election should never have been held.
The Requests for Review submitted by Foundation staff attorneys for the Puerto Rico guard and Virginia Transdev employees each request that the NLRB should either grant review or least hold the case until a decision is issued in Cruz Sosa’s case.
Push to Remove UFCW Union Could End Pro-Union Boss “Contract Bar” Policy
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2020 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Non-statutory NLRB policy hinders workers’ right to vote out an unwanted union
Employees at the Selbyville, DE, Mountaire Farms plant rally to vote out unpopular UFCW honchos from their workplace, as union lawyers scramble to block the workers’ votes from being counted.
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has announced that it will review the so-called “contract bar” doctrine, which prevents employees from exercising their right to vote an unpopular union out of their workplace for up to three years if union officials and their employer have finalized a monopoly bargaining contract.
This is the latest development in a case by a Selbyville, Delaware-based Mountaire Farms poultry employee, Oscar Cruz Sosa, against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union. Cruz Sosa submitted a petition in February for a vote on whether Local 27 should be removed as monopoly bargaining agent in his workplace. The petition was signed by hundreds of his coworkers, more than the percentage required to trigger such a vote.
Worker Obtains Foundation Help after Union Attempts to Block Vote
After he submitted the petition, UFCW bosses immediately claimed that the “contract bar” should block Cruz Sosa and his coworkers from even having an election, because the monopoly bargaining agreement between Mountaire and the union had been signed less than three years earlier.
Cruz Sosa then obtained free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in defending his and his coworkers’ right to vote. With Foundation aid, he also hit UFCW agents with federal unfair labor practice charges for imposing an illegal forced-dues clause on the workplace and threatening him after he submitted the petition.
When the NLRB Regional Director in Baltimore heard the election case, he ruled that the union contract contains an unlawful forced-dues clause that mandates workers immediately pay union dues upon hiring or be fired. Under NLRB precedent, an illegal forced-dues clause means the “contract bar” cannot apply, allowing the vote to proceed.
UFCW’s Desperate Attempt to Block Vote Triggers NLRB Review of “Contract Bar”
Despite the longstanding precedent supporting the Regional Director’s ruling, UFCW union lawyers filed a Request for Review, asking the full NLRB to reverse the Regional Director and halt the election.
In response, Cruz Sosa’s Foundation staff attorneys opposed the union’s efforts to block the vote. They also argued that, if the Board were to grant the union’s Request for Review, it should also reconsider the entire “contract bar” policy, which has no statutory basis in the NLRA. The Foundation’s legal brief noted that the “contract bar” runs counter to the rights of workers under the NLRA, which explicitly include the right to vote out a union a majority of workers oppose.
Just hours after the voting process in the decertification election had begun, the NLRB issued its order granting the union’s Request for Review, while also accepting the Foundation’s request to reconsider the entire “contract bar” doctrine. The order noted “that it is appropriate for the Board to undertake in this case a general review of its ‘contract bar’ doctrine.”
Given the precedential import of this case, the NLRB solicited amicus briefs on whether the “contract bar” should be allowed to stand. UFCW officials, still desperate to throw a wrench in Cruz Sosa and his coworkers’ effort to vote them out, demanded that the NLRB rescind its request for amicus briefs in the case, but that effort was quickly rebuffed.
“We urge the NLRB to swiftly overturn this outrageous non-statutory policy, which lets union bosses undermine for up to three years the free choice of workers that is supposed to be at the center of federal labor law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “The very premise of the NLRB-created ‘contract bar,’ that union bosses should be insulated from worker decertification efforts, is completely backwards.”
LaJeunesse added: “Union officials across the country use all types of tactics to get workers into unions but rely on government power and legal tricks to prevent them from getting out.”
Delaware Poultry Worker Charges UFCW Brass with Illegal Dues Deductions, Threats
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2020 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation attorneys assist worker leading effort to oust unpopular union
Employees at the Selbyville, DE, Mountaire Farms plant were subjected to an illegal forced-dues clause by UFCW union bosses, who for months have also tried to block their right to vote on whether union officials deserve to stay.
SELBYVILLE, DE – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Mountaire Farms employee Oscar Cruz Sosa hit United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union bosses with federal unfair labor practice charges. The charges assert that union officials violated his and his coworkers’ rights by enforcing an illegal forced-dues provision in the monopoly bargaining contract, and that union bosses threatened him for spearheading a petition for a vote to remove the union.
Cruz Sosa’s charges come after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 Director in Baltimore rejected union arguments that the decertification election Cruz Sosa and his coworkers requested should be blocked. Under a controversial NLRB-created policy known as the “contract bar,” employees’ statutory right to hold a decertification vote to remove a union can be blocked for up to three years when a union contract is in place.
However, under longstanding precedent the “contract bar” to decertification does not apply when the monopoly bargaining contract in place contains an unlawful forced-dues clause.
Worker Deflects Union Legal Attack by Exposing Illegal Forced-Dues Clause
Prior to this charge, the NLRB Region 5 Director found that the contract between Mountaire Farms and UFCW union officials illegally required workers to immediately pay union dues upon being hired, instead of providing new hires a 30-day grace period the federal labor statute and longstanding precedent require. Because Delaware lacks Right to Work protections for its employees, Cruz Sosa and his coworkers can be required to pay union fees to keep their jobs.
The NLRB Region 5 Director thus ruled that the vote Cruz Sosa and his coworkers requested should proceed, and scheduled the vote to decertify the union. Cruz Sosa’s unfair labor practice charge, citing that decision’s finding that the forced-dues clause is unlawful, asks the NLRB to order union officials to refund all dues and fees seized from him and his coworkers under the auspices of that illegal clause.
Even after they were unable to block the election with the “contract bar,” UFCW union officials did not give up. In fact, union lawyers have initiated at least three other “blocking charges” against the employer in a last-ditch effort to block the vote, another common tactic used by union bosses to halt or delay workers’ attempts to vote them out.
UFCW union officials’ attempts to stifle the decertification effort didn’t end there. They also asked that any vote be delayed and changed to a“mail-in” vote, even though it had already been scheduled to take place in person on the premises where the workers work every day. In the responses to the union attempts to scuttle the planned vote, Cruz Sosa’s Foundation-provided attorneys argued that the vote should go forward as scheduled, because on-site elections are the NLRB’s preferred method for conducting elections, and the on-site vote was announced to workers weeks ago.
Cruz Sosa also alleged that a UFCW agent came to his house uninvited back in March. The agent warned him “that the decertification process being undertaken was ‘illegal’” and that a court battle was coming, according to his charge filed at NLRB Region 5.
Union Agents Threaten Worker after He Attempts to Exercise Rights
Cruz Sosa’s charge states that this was “threatening” and “coercive behavior” and a clear attempt to restrain him and his coworkers in the exercise of their right under the National Labor Relations Act to vote out an unwanted union.
“The threats and dues deductions in this case show how union bosses regularly trample workers’ rights in order to keep forced dues rolling into their coffers,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “We hope that NLRB Region 5 will immediately prosecute the union for these violations, and ultimately order the union to refund all dues and fees collected from Mountaire Farms workers under the unlawful forced-dues clause.”
Semmens continued: “While UFCW officials were caught red-handed in this case, these types of forced union dues abuses will continue until Delaware workers have the protection of a Right to Work law, which ensures that all union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”
