Tire Wholesaler Employees Force RWDSU Union Out of 15 Locations
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
RWDSU union officials abandon 500+ employee unit ahead of vote at tire wholesaler
Tire-d of the RWDSU: Chris Dorney submitted a huge number of signatures from his coworkers at tire wholesaler Max Finkelstein when petitioning the NLRB for a vote to remove the RWDSU union.
WINCHESTER, VA – The Biden National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which includes among its members two former union bosses from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is pursuing an agenda that hasn’t exactly been making it easy for workers to vote out a union they don’t want. But that hasn’t stopped workers across the country from going to extraordinary lengths to kick out unions that don’t serve their interests.
In October 2023, Chris Dorney, a Winchester, VA-based employee of tire wholesaler Max Finkelstein, kick-started a cross-country effort to vote the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) out of 15 warehouse facilities across the eastern United States. This work unit included more than 500 employees across Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut.
Virginia Worker Mustered Strong Showing on Petition for Union Ouster Vote at Tire Wholesaler
With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Dorney submitted a petition to the NLRB containing more than enough employee signatures to trigger a vote to remove the union from the large unit.
While Dorney and his fellow Virginia employees enjoyed the Right to Work freedom to opt-out of dues payments to the union, the same couldn’t be said for any of the other employees, all of whom hail from states where dues payments can be mandated as a condition of employment. But voting RWDSU bosses out of power entirely at the tire wholesaler would end the union’s forced-dues power.
“We warehouse workers and drivers at Max Finkelstein may be from many different facilities in many different states, but we are in agreement about one thing: RWDSU union officials don’t represent our interests,” Dorney said of the effort. “It’s our right under federal law to challenge RWDSU’s forced representation power.”
RWDSU Bosses Flee Unit as Union Officials Rack Up Losses Nationwide
However, before the vote could occur, RWDSU union officials disclaimed interest in continuing their monopoly representation powers over the unit, likely to avoid an embarrassing rejection by workers at the ballot box.
Unionized workers are increasingly requesting elections to remove unwanted unions — a potential reason for the Biden NLRB’s efforts to crack down on decertification votes. Additionally, union bosses are increasingly losing these contests. As of last year, filings for union decertification votes had shot up by over 40 percent since 2020. Of decertification elections that occurred, the number which resulted in union bosses losing went up by 72 percent.
“Mr. Dorney and his coworkers’ effort to kick out the RWDSU union, which spanned several states, 15 facilities, and hundreds of workers, is yet another example that workers often want to escape union officials’ one-size-fits-all agenda. It’s also a demonstration that workers will go to great lengths in order to exercise this right,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “But the Biden NLRB, bent on empowering the President’s union boss political allies, plans to grant unions even more power to defeat workers’ will.”
Labor Board Rejects Biden Appointee’s Attempt to Scuttle Case Against Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Texas nurse challenges concealment of secret union-employer deal which stifles decertification
With Foundation legal aid, Texas nurse Marissa Zamora shut down NLRB “Acting” General Counsel Ohr’s attempt to block her case.
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently rejected a move by NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr to prematurely end Texas nurse Marissa Zamora’s case before the Board could rule. The case challenges National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union officials’ refusal to disclose a secret agreement they signed with the parent company of her hospital that limits Zamora’s ability to remove the union from her workplace.
Ohr is a career NLRB bureaucrat, who was installed as General Counsel by President Biden this January after Biden made the unprecedented move of removing Trump-appointed NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb before his Senate-confirmed four-year term expired. Ohr filed a motion in February seeking unilaterally to send Zamora’s complaint back to the NLRB’s Fort Worth regional office to be dismissed — after Zamora’s case had already been fully briefed at the full Board in Washington.
Zamora is represented for free by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, who in March opposed Ohr’s attempted maneuver. Their brief argued that snuffing
the case out now would jeopardize the NLRB’s power to decide cases involving violations of federal labor law, and also contended that Ohr lacked any authority to make his motion because of Biden’s illegal ouster of Robb. In a May decision, the NLRB agreed with Zamora’s Foundation staff attorneys that the case should continue, observing that the matter “has been fully litigated, and the controversy at issue, which remains active, is ripe for Board adjudication.” The case began when Zamora demanded a copy of the secret so-called “neutrality agreement.” Such agreements are deals between union officials and employers — usually without the knowledge of employees in a workplace — that seek to assist the union in gaining monopoly bargaining powers over rank-and-file workers.
NNOC Agents Shrouded, Lied About Deal Which Stymied Info about Decertification
“The Board correctly rejected Peter Ohr’s attempt to scuttle this case so he could let union officials off scot-free despite their secret backroom deal to undermine the rights of nurses like Marissa Zamora who are subjected to unwanted union representation,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said about the decision to let the case move forward. These controversial top-down organizing deals frequently contain provisions that require employers to silence opposition to unionization, hand over workers’ personal information for coercive “card check” drives that bypass the protections of a secret-ballot election, provide union organizers with preferential access to the workplace and even ensure employers will help stifle workers’ efforts to decertify, i.e. remove, the union.
In Zamora’s case, she began circulating fliers and other materials in June 2018 to educate her coworkers on how they could obtain a vote to decertify the union. Legal documents she filed in her case explain that union agents “repeatedly ripp[ed] down her fliers” and that hospital officials referenced a secret agreement with the union when they denied “her access to post material on protected bulletin boards, where her material would be shielded from vandalism.”
Zamora subsequently asked both NNOC and hospital officials to show her any “neutrality agreement” that might have triggered those efforts to block her and her coworkers’ rights. All her requests were denied, and NNOC even denied that such an agreement exists. This was despite statements by hospital agents to her that indicated a “neutrality agreement” was indeed in effect.
Trump-Appointed NLRB GC Robb Backed Nurse’s Case Until Unprecedented Firing
Zamora filed federal unfair labor practice charges at the NLRB, challenging NNOC bosses’ refusal to disclose the secret agreement. Then- NLRB General Counsel Robb issued a complaint supporting the claims in Zamora’s charges.
Nevertheless, a Labor Board Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed the complaint Robb issued, even revoking subpoenas that would have compelled NNOC union bosses to reveal the covert deal.
Zamora challenged the ALJ’s dismissal, filing exceptions at the full Board in Washington. Briefs she filed supporting those exceptions pointed out that, during a two-day trial, it came out that the “neutrality agreement” existed, but it was a closely guarded secret between the hospital and union officials “to be kept strictly confidential from employees and all third parties.” Robb also submitted exceptions buttressing Zamora’s exceptions.
Robb’s pro-employee decisions preceded Ohr’s controversial installation by Biden in January, and Ohr’s subsequent attempt to remand or dismiss the case, which the NLRB has now rejected.
“The Board should now promptly rule for Ms. Zamora on the merits of the case so union bosses cannot keep secret pacts with employers to the detriment of rank-and-file employees’ protected rights,” Mix said.
WV, TX Employees Defend Rights as Biden NLRB Appointee Attempts to Block Cases
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2021 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
‘Acting’ GC tries to stop prosecution of union bosses for illegal dues, secret-organizing deal
Marissa Zamora is challenging the authority of NLRB “Acting” General Counsel Peter Ohr, who was installed by Pres. Biden in an unprecedented power grab and began attacking the rights of workers opposed to associating with union officials.
WASHINGTON, DC – President Biden’s unprecedented removal of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Peter Robb, and subsequent installation of forced-unionism zealot Peter S. Ohr as Robb’s “Acting” replacement, quickly threatened workers’ individual rights. It also threatened the independence of the Board itself, including in multiple ongoing cases brought with National Right to Work Foundation legal aid.
In two cases brought by Foundation staff attorneys that are already before the NLRB, Ohr is attempting to stop the Board from ruling against union officials. One is a case for Texas-based nurse Marissa Zamora, which challenges union officials’ ability to hide secret “neutrality agreements” that limit workers’ rights. The other, brought for West Virginia Kroger employee Shelby Krocker, seeks to prosecute union officials for coercing workers into signing dues checkoff authorizations that are supposed to be voluntary.
Former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, who supported the workers in both of these cases, was removed by President Biden just minutes after his inauguration, despite the fact that Robb still had nearly 11 months remaining in his Senate-confirmed four-year term.
This unprecedented and possibly illegal maneuver flies in the face of the law creating the NLRB, which envisioned an independent General Counsel. Since the office of NLRB General Counsel was established in 1947, no sitting General Counsel of the NLRB has ever been fired by a president before the end of their term, even when the White House changed hands.
Zamora’s case progressed to the full NLRB in Washington, D.C., after an NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed a complaint that former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb had issued, prosecuting the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) for refusing to disclose to represented employees its secret “neutrality agreement.”
TX Nurse Fights Biden Appointee Move to Shield Union’s Secret Deal
Though Zamora’s Foundation-provided attorneys and Robb had both filed exceptions urging the full Board to reverse the ALJ’s decision, NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr filed a motion on February 23, 2021, seeking unilaterally to send the complaint back to the NLRB Fort Worth regional office to be dismissed.
So-called “neutrality agreements” are organizing deals struck between union officials and employers, usually without the knowledge of employees in a workplace. They frequently contain provisions that require employers to silence opposition to unionization. In Zamora’s situation, the neutrality agreement was used to limit her ability to inform her coworkers about their right to vote out the union.
Zamora’s opposition brief challenges Ohr’s attempt to kill the case. It argues that the case is already before the full Board, and she “is a full party with a right to have her pending exceptions decided by the Board.” It notes that letting Ohr shut her out at this stage would “infringe on the Board’s exclusive power to adjudicate violations of” federal labor law.
Further, the brief contends that because of Robb’s unlawful removal, Ohr lacks the legal authority to even ask the NLRB to end the case. Allowing “the President to fire the General Counsel at will would do irreparable damage to the NLRB’s function as an independent agency,” the brief says.
In Krocker’s case, NLRB Region 6 in Pittsburgh initially dismissed Krocker’s charge challenging United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) checkoff cards which falsely stated that they “MUST BE SIGNED.”
West Virginia Kroger Employee Stands Up to Union-Allied Ohr
Foundation attorneys successfully appealed this dismissal to General Counsel Peter Robb, who sustained the charge and ordered NLRB Region 6 to issue a complaint prosecuting UFCW Local 400 for the violation.
In fact, Robb ordered Region 6 to issue the complaint on several additional grounds, including maintenance of a checkoff that prohibited employees from ending dues deductions after the expiration of a contract.
After an ALJ declined to rule that UFCW Local 400 officials violated the law with their “MUST BE SIGNED” demands and other unlawful provisions, Krocker’s Foundation staff attorneys and General Counsel Robb both appealed the case to the NLRB. Their appeals have been fully briefed before the Board since September.
After Ohr’s appointment, Region 6 entered into an inadequate informal settlement over Krocker’s objection and filed a motion to send the case back to Region 6.
Biden Appointee Shielding Union Boss Privileges
Krocker’s opposition to that motion argues, as does Zamora’s, that her case is already pending before the full NLRB and that Ohr lacks the authority to divert it away from the Board’s judgment.
“‘Acting’ NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr’s unabated attacks on Foundation cases seeking to defend workers’ individual rights clearly show how imminent a threat our cases are to union bosses’ coercive and greedy behavior,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Ohr demonstrates repeatedly that he has no problem with turning the NLRB into the Biden Administration’s tool for stifling the rights of independent-minded workers who dare to stand up to Biden’s union boss allies.”
