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.”
L’Oréal Employee Hits Union with Federal Charges for Illegal Dues Deductions, Threats for Seeking to Oust Union
According to charge, union agent threatened: “The union is like a big mafia…something bad is going to happen to you”
Piscataway, NJ (December 6, 2023) – Piscataway L’Oréal USA employee Ana Maria Hoyos Lopez has slammed the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU/UFCW) Local 262 with federal charges, which assert that RWDSU made illegal threats against her for opposing the union. She filed the charges at Region 22 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
In September, Hoyos Lopez submitted a petition to the NLRB in which she and her coworkers requested a vote to remove the union (or “decertification vote”). She asserts in her charges that union agents targeted her as she was circulating the petition. In particular, Hoyos Lopez stated that a L’Oréal employee told her on September 6, 2023, that “the union is like a big mafia” and “something bad is going to happen to you if the union leaves.”
Hoyos Lopez’s charges also recount a September 22 union meeting in which union officials, including the RWDSU Local 262 President and shop steward, shouted her and other employees down after they brought up shortcomings in the union’s performance. The union officials demanded the pro-decertification employees leave the union’s meeting.
Even after Hoyos Lopez and other employees voluntarily departed the meeting, the charges state, the union president “chased after” Hoyos Lopez and threatened to call the police on her if she did not completely leave the public park in which the meeting took place. The charges also state that union officials approached pro-decertification L’Oreal employee Jarry Moreno at the same meeting and told him to convince Hoyos Lopez to withdraw the petition.
Hoyos Lopez’s charges indicate that she experienced more illegal activity than just intimidation from union agents. RWDSU union officials also refused to honor or respond to emails she sent resigning her union membership and opting out of dues payments for union political expenses. New Jersey lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, and thus allows union officials and management to enforce contracts in which workers are forced to pay union fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. However, the Foundation-won CWA v. Beck Supreme Court decision guards workers from being forced to pay any dues that go toward union politics or other expenses unrelated to the union’s bargaining functions.
“As such, RWDSU/UFCW Local 262 must honor [Hoyos Lopez’s] resignation request, and given there is no collective bargaining agreement in place, cease all further deductions from [her] paycheck,” the charges state.
Illegal Union Threats Continue After Contested Election
The election to decertify RWDSU, which took place October 19 and 20, is currently the subject of objections from Hoyos Lopez. The objections assert that union officials unlawfully interfered with the election through their intimidating actions during the September 22 meeting, as well as through campaign misrepresentations and racially-charged tactics.
Hoyos Lopez’s federal charges, which she filed after submitting her election objections, state that employees she believed were acting on behalf of the union targeted her after she attempted to defend the integrity of the election. On November 27, “a L’Oréal contractor…intimidated [Hoyos Lopez]” and told her that “people say you have to leave because you have problems with the union.”
The charges argue that all of these actions by RWDSU union officials and alleged union agents are clear violations of Hoyos Lopez’s rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal law the NLRB is charged with enforcing. Section 7 protects workers’ right to refrain from union activities.
“It appears abundantly clear that RWDSU union officials at the L’Oréal USA plant leveraged threats, intimidation, and a host of other divisive tactics in order to demonize any worker who went against their agenda,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The union’s focus was clearly on maintaining their forced-dues power over L’Oréal employees, even at the expense of steamrolling the rights of the workers they claim to ‘represent’ – they were deprived of a fair election, and couldn’t even voice legitimate concerns about the union without fear of retaliation.”
“Foundation staff attorneys will continue to fight for Ms. Hoyos Lopez and her coworkers until they can exercise their right to vote on whether RWDSU bosses deserve to stay in a free and uncoerced environment,” Mix added.
Piscataway L’Oreal Employee Says RWDSU Union Boss Threats and Misinformation Undermined Vote to Oust Union
Worker’s objections to election assert that union bosses threatened employees critical of union and sowed racial division; new election sought
Piscataway, NJ (November 6, 2023) – Ana Maria Hoyos Lopez, an employee of L’Oreal USA Products, is asking for a rerun election based on charges that Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU-UFCW) Local 262 officials interfered in a vote she and her coworkers requested to remove the union. In election objections filed with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 22 in Newark, Hoyos Lopez maintains that union officials threatened workers who voiced objections to union officials’ performance, misrepresented facts about the employer’s healthcare plans, used racially-charged tactics, and perpetrated other coercive conduct in the weeks leading up to the election.
Hoyos Lopez is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. In September, also with Foundation aid, she filed a petition which contained enough signatures from her coworkers to prompt the NLRB to hold a vote to remove the union (a “decertification election”) at her workplace. The vote took place at L’Oreal USA’s Piscataway facility through October 19 and October 20.
Objections Assert RWDSU Union Officials Yelled at, Chased Employees Who Expressed Concerns with Union, Made Racial Appeals
Hoyos Lopez’s objections focus on a September 22 meeting that union bosses held to push workers to vote for the union. According to the filing, during the meeting, Hoyos Lopez and some other employees brought up problems with the union’s performance, including lack of communication between the employees and union officials, and the poor quality of the union contract. In response, “[t]he pro-decertification employees were yelled down, the president of the Union shouted expletives at them in a threatening and coercive manner, and union officials demanded that they leave the meeting.”
During the same meeting, the objections state, Hoyos Lopez attempted to film the threatening actions of union officials, but a union official accosted her further and “proceeded to chase after Petitioner despite the fact that she had already left the pavilion” at the public park the meeting was occurring at.
“Outside the pavilion [a union official] demanded that Petitioner leave the park entirely, and threatened to call the cops on her if they did not comply,” the objections state. During the same meeting, union officials also asked Hoyos Lopez to withdraw her petition or asked other employees to request she do so.
Hoyos Lopez also asserts in the objections that, in the weeks leading up to the election, union officials “misrepresented the difference in health insurance policies offered by the Union compared to those offered by the Employer,” interfered with the laboratory conditions of the election by speaking to employees as they were in line to vote, and sent text messages that “intrusively asked employees on which day they would be voting.”
The final objection states that RWDSU-UFCW bosses engaged in racial tactics to swing the vote in favor of the union. Union officials told employees that white managers in the U.S. are racist and don’t want to promote Hispanics, and that employees “should vote for the Union to defend their rights.”
“This appeal to racial and ethnic prejudice is coercive and despicable, and is grounds to set aside the election,” the objections conclude.
As RWDSU Union Bosses Shut Down Employee Vote, Biden NLRB Seeks Less Worker Freedom
Hoyos Lopez’s objections will now be investigated and a rerun election will occur if the NLRB determines union officials’ actions were objectionable and interfered with employees’ free choice in the election.
“If RWDSU union officials truly believed they would win an election among L’Oreal employees, they would not engage in such acts of coercion, including threatening the employees they claim to ‘represent,’ misrepresenting facts prior to the vote, and shamelessly sowing division,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “We will continue to fight for Ms. Hoyos Lopez and her coworkers to get a fair opportunity to freely choose whether RWDSU bosses should remain in their workplace.”
“Unfortunately, instead of beefing up protections on worker-requested elections, the Biden NLRB is seeking big policy changes that will make it easier for union officials to gain power without a vote,” added Mix.
Max Finkelstein Workers Across East Coast Force RWDSU Union to Abandon 500+ Employee Unit
Work unit spans several states; union bosses disclaimed interest after Winchester, VA-based worker submitted enough employee signatures for ouster vote
Winchester, VA (October 30, 2023) – Employees of tire wholesaler Max Finkelstein from Virginia to Maine have successfully freed themselves from the control of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) officials. The worker victory comes after Winchester, VA-based Max Finkelstein truck driver Christopher Dorney submitted a petition on behalf of his coworkers asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a vote to remove the union. Dorney received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing private sector labor law and administering elections to install or remove unions. By NLRB rules, Dorney’s petition contained enough signatures from his colleagues across several states to prompt a union decertification vote.
Because the work unit spans multiple states, the RWDSU union exercised varying amounts of power over Dorney and his coworkers. In states that lack Right to Work protections, such as Maine, New York, and Maryland, RWDSU union officials could enforce agreements with Max Finkelstein management that required workers to pay union dues simply to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states like Virginia, in contrast, union dues payment and union membership are strictly voluntary. However, federal law gives union officials in all states the power to impose their “representation” over every worker in a unionized workplace, even those who are not union members or oppose the union’s agenda.
However, late last week RWDSU officials announced they were departing the work unit, possibly to avoid an embarrassing rejection by workers at the ballot box.
“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,” commented Dorney. “It’s our right under federal law to challenge RWDSU’s forced representation power.”
RWDSU Faces Another Setback as Employees Increasingly Oppose Unions
The RWDSU union has recently tried several high-profile unionization campaigns at Amazon warehouses across the country, most notably at the large Bessemer, AL, facility, where employees voted against the union by substantial margins in both 2021 and 2022. Gallup polling shows that 58 percent of nonunion workers are “not interested at all” in joining a union.
Workers currently under union control are also increasingly seeking to obtain votes to free themselves, often with Foundation aid. Currently, the NLRB’s data shows a unionized private sector worker is far more likely to be involved in a decertification effort than their nonunion counterpart is to be involved in a unionization campaign. NLRB statistics also show a 20% increase in decertification petitions last year versus 2021.
Biden Labor Board Seeks to Stifle Workers’ Right to Vote Out Unwanted Unions
Dorney and his coworkers’ effort comes as the Biden NLRB in Washington, D.C., is attempting to make it more difficult for workers to exercise their right to remove unwanted unions, while giving union officials more tools to gain power in a workplace without even a vote. The NLRB is expected to soon issue a final rule overturning the Election Protection Rule, a Foundation-backed 2020 reform which made commonsense improvements to the decertification process.
The Biden NLRB’s proposed rule, among other things, will give union bosses the power to use “blocking charges,” or unproven allegations of employer misconduct, to prevent workers from voting to decertify a union. The rule will also strip workers of the ability to file for a secret ballot election after a union installs itself via “card check,” a coercive process that bypasses the NLRB’s standard election process and instead permits union bosses to collect cards from workers (often through strong-arm tactics) that are later counted as “votes” for the union.
“Mr. Dorney and his coworkers’ effort to kick out the RWDSU union, which spanned several states, at least 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 President Mark Mix. “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.”
Piscataway L’Oreal Employees Demand Vote to Remove RWDSU Union Officials from Facility
RWDSU rejected twice by Alabama Amazon workers; union may soon also lose power over large unit of beauty company employees
Piscataway, NJ (September 19, 2023) – Employees of L’Oreal USA Products’ facility in Piscataway, NJ, have just filed a petition requesting a vote to remove Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU-UFCW) Local 262 officials from power at their workplace. L’Oreal employee Ana Maria Hoyos Lopez submitted the petition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 22 in Newark with free legal representation from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Hoyos Lopez’s petition contains signatures from the required number of her coworkers to prompt the NLRB to hold a union decertification vote at the Piscataway facility. The work unit under the control of the RWDSU union is large (over 100 employees) and includes production workers, maintenance workers, truck drivers, and warehouse workers.
Because New Jersey lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, RWDSU union officials have the power to force Hoyos Lopez and her coworkers to pay union fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in states with Right to Work laws, union bosses can’t enter agreements with employers that force employees to fork over a portion of their paychecks to the union just to get or keep a job.
“RWDSU union officials have spent a lot of time campaigning around our workplace, but they have not been standing up for me and my coworkers,” commented Hoyos Lopez. “My coworkers and I deserve a chance to exercise our right to vote the union out, and I’m confident we will decide to kick them out.”
Biden NLRB Planning New Restrictions on Workers’ Right to Vote Out Unwanted Union Officials
Hoyos Lopez and her colleagues’ effort comes as the Biden NLRB in Washington, D.C., is attempting to make it more difficult for employees to obtain votes to remove unwanted unions, while giving union officials more tools to gain power in a workplace without even a vote. The NLRB will soon issue a final rule overturning the Election Protection Rule, a Foundation-backed 2020 reform which made commonsense improvements to the decertification process.
The Election Protection Rule’s repeal, among other things, will grant union officials greater power to use so-called “blocking charges” to stop union decertification elections from happening. “Blocking charges” are often unverified allegations of employer misconduct that frequently have no relation or connection to workers’ desire to oust a union.
The repeal will also likely block workers from seeking a union decertification vote for a year after union bosses attempt to install themselves in a workplace via “card check.” The card check process lets union officials bypass the NLRB’s traditional secret ballot vote procedures and instead allege majority support by collecting union authorization cards directly from workers – often using coercive or intimidating tactics.
“It’s not particularly surprising that L’Oreal employees are seeking to oust RWDSU union bosses, who seem to have a penchant for ignoring workers’ will,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “RWDSU is still trying to impose itself on workers at the large Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama, despite those workers voting not once, but twice to reject the union’s presence.”
“Unfortunately, the Biden NLRB is trying to make it easier for union officials who seek to undermine worker votes to cling onto power, but Foundation attorneys will continue to defend Ms. Hoyos Lopez and any other employee who seeks to exercise their individual right to vote out unwanted union officials,” Mix added.
NYC Car Wash Workers Kick Out Unwanted RWDSU Union Officials
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses rejected by Alabama Amazon workers now ousted by car wash employees
Main Street Car Wash worker Ervin Par (center) and his colleagues in NYC thank their National Right to Work Foundation attorney for helping them secure a vote to remove unwanted RWDSU union bosses from their workplace.
NEW YORK, NY – In 2018, Ervin Par, an employee of Main Street Car Wash in Queens, NY, explained why he and his coworkers overwhelmingly wanted Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) officials out of their workplace: “They just come and collect their fees, but I don’t see an economic benefit from the union.”
“Among my colleagues, there’s a majority that doesn’t want the union,” Par told Reason magazine in an interview at the time. Now, after a three-year effort to vote out RWDSU officials, Par and his coworkers have finally succeeded with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Soon after Par submitted an October petition signed by enough of his coworkers to prompt the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct an employee vote whether to eject the union, RWDSU officials filed paperwork ending their control over the facility. Notably, RWDSU union officials fled Main Street Car Wash before the NLRB had conducted the union decertification election for Par and his coworkers — likely in an attempt to avoid an embarrassing, overwhelming rejection in the vote.
Car Wash Employees Endured Years of Forced Dues, Union “Blocking Charges”
Par also rallied his coworkers in 2018 to oust the union, but their valid petition for a decertification election was thwarted by “blocking charges” from RWDSU officials. Because Par and his colleagues work in non-Right to Work New York, the delays meant that they were forced to pay dues to an unpopular union for almost three more years just to keep their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work states all union financial support is strictly voluntary.
Par and his coworkers’ desire for freedom from union control is not uncommon. According to reports, in 2018 Main Street Car Wash was one of only six car washes in New York City still under union monopoly control, a number that had been declining following other union departures due to lack of employee support.
RWDSU Bosses Oppose Will of Rank-and-File Workers Across Country
The RWDSU is notably the same union that Bessemer, AL, Amazon employees rejected decisively during a highly publicized April 2021 union election. Despite that election loss, RWDSU officials are still trying to install themselves at the Bessemer facility. Litigation continues over whether RWDSU lawyers will nullify the workers’ vote in which barely 12% of eligible voters supported union bosses’ monopoly “representation.”
Atlanta, GA-area employees of water treatment company Ecolab have also recently received free Foundation legal assistance in their attempt to remove RWDSU officials.
“Mr. Par and his coworkers persevered for almost three years to end RWDSU union officials’ grip on power in their workplace,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Although we’re glad the employees have finally been able to exercise their right to remove RWDSU, union officials should not have been able to manipulate the rules to stifle the decertification effort for so long.”
“RWDSU union officials have a penchant for challenging the will of the very employees they claim to ‘represent.’” Semmens added. “Workers across the country who seek to remove unwanted RWDSU presence in their workplace should contact the Foundation for free legal aid in exercising their rights.”
