Seattle Mariners Employee Fights Biden Labor Board Cemex Decision Upending Right to Vote in Secret on Union ‘Representation’
In amicus brief at Ninth Circuit, employee shows how controversial Labor Board decision undermines rank-and-file workers’ freedom of choice
San Francisco, CA (February 12, 2024) – Tami Kecherson, a retail employee for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball, has filed an amicus brief in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC v. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a federal case currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA.
The case is a challenge to the Biden NLRB’s radical overhaul of federal labor law that grants union bosses the power to bypass a traditional secret ballot election when trying to gain monopoly bargaining power over a workplace. Kecherson is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Controversial NLRB Decision Lets Union Bosses Quash Secret Ballot Elections
The NLRB issued a decision in Cemex in August 2023 which requires employers to either grant a union’s demand for recognition based on “card check,” or immediately petition for a secret ballot election. Card check is a process that uses “authorization cards” collected by union organizers as a substitute for votes in a secret ballot election. The card check process lacks the security of a secret ballot union vote, and exposes workers to coercion and intimidation as union officials seek to collect authorization cards. Even AFL-CIO organizing guides admit card check drives aren’t representative of how workers would vote in elections, and that many workers sign cards just to “get the union off my back.”
Under Cemex, an employer who declines to recognize a union is required to quickly ask the NLRB to hold a secret ballot election. But the NLRB doesn’t have to grant that request. A union can easily prompt the NLRB to cancel an employee vote (or even overturn an election that doesn’t go in the union’s favor) by filing charges against the company and showing the employer committed an unfair labor practice during the “critical period” leading up to the election.
Seattle Mariners Employee Defends Workers’ Right to Secret Ballot Elections
Kecherson and her coworkers from the Seattle Mariners’ retail shops were the targets of a card check organizing drive by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials in October 2022. Kecherson filed a petition at the NLRB challenging the card check-based imposition of the union and demanding a secret ballot election to test if the union had the support it claimed.
In May 2023, the NLRB Regional Director in Seattle ordered an election over the objections of UFCW union bosses, noting UFCW union officials had not properly informed employees of their right to file for such an election. Kecherson and her colleagues eventually voted by a margin of 50 to 9 to remove the UFCW union.
Kecherson and her colleagues were able to request such a vote under the auspices of the Election Protection Rule (EPR), a set of Foundation-supported reforms that the NLRB adopted in 2020. The EPR gives workers a 45-day opportunity to request a secret ballot vote to challenge a union’s card check-based claims of majority support after the completion of such a campaign. The process by which workers can challenge card check drives was established by Foundation attorneys in the Dana Corp. NLRB case. Though this 2007 decision was overturned in 2010 by the Obama NLRB, “Dana elections” were codified in the EPR – but may soon be nixed due to Biden NLRB rulemaking.
As Kecherson’s amicus brief states, the situation in her workplace (where 85% of workers voted to reject the union despite the union’s claims of majority support via cards) demonstrates how the Cemex decision wrongly promotes union-solicited authorization cards as a reliable alternative to secret ballot votes. “In short, Local 3000’s ostensible claim to majority employee support, which was based on authorization cards the union collected from the employees, was totally refuted when tested in the crucible of a secret ballot election,” Kecherson’s brief says. “Yet under Cemex, the NLRB will routinely impose compulsory union representation on employees based on card checks and without a secret-ballot election.”
“In Cemex, the Biden NLRB is promoting union boss power to the detriment of employee free choice, a right that is supposed be at the center of the National Labor Relations Act,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Ms. Kecherson’s story, where she and her colleagues overwhelmingly voted against the union despite union boss claims of majority support, is just the latest demonstration of what countless NLRB decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court, and even unions have admitted: Card check is unreliable and inferior to secret ballot elections where union organizers cannot see how each individual voted.”
“To defend the rights of rank-and-file workers like Tami Kecherson, the court must reject the NLRB’s biased and cynical Cemex framework that undermines the NLRA’s clear statutory preference for secret ballot votes,” added Mix.
Seattle Mariners Retail Employee Challenges Seattle NLRB Officials’ Refusal to Certify Overwhelming Vote Against Union
By not certifying vote of over 80+ percent against UFCW, NLRB Region 19 officials permit union to dodge legal consequences of losing vote
Seattle, WA (October 20, 2023) – Following an overwhelming workplace vote to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials, Seattle Mariners MLB retail employee Tami Kecherson filed a Request for Review defending the election result at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC. The Request for Review comes after NLRB Region 19 officials in Seattle refused to certify the 50-9 vote result, and instead permitted UFCW union officials to “disclaim” interest in the bargaining unit and avoid restrictions on regaining control over the employees that normally apply to unions that lose elections.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are providing free legal aid to Kecherson in her effort to defend the election victory. The Request for Review recounts that, after the worker-requested union decertification vote finally took place, UFCW union officials filed “blocking charges” against Mariners management in an attempt to delay the certification of the vote. “Blocking charges” contain unverified and often groundless allegations of employer interference in a union election.
NLRB Region 19’s investigation of UFCW officials’ “blocking charges” delayed the certification of the employees’ vote for months, the Request for Review notes, but in September UFCW bosses withdrew their apparently frivolous blocking charges and instead filed paperwork announcing they were “voluntarily” leaving the facility.
When Foundation attorneys contacted NLRB Region 19 to determine when the vote certification would occur now that the meritless charges were withdrawn, NLRB officials instead declared that certification would not occur, presumably because the union had just disclaimed interest and walked away. Further, NLRB officials effectively stated that the UFCW union would be allowed to skirt the statutory one-year restriction on regaining control in the workplace that applies to unions that lose elections, and would only be barred from the workplace for a much shorter period.
“This is akin to an employee fired for insubordination yelling ‘you can’t fire me, I quit,’ but only much worse,” the Request for Review argues. “That is so because Region 19 is arbitrarily allowing Local 3000 to get away with a rather grotesque form of gamesmanship…This cannot be allowed to occur under the [National Labor Relations Act] and the Board’s rules.”
Union Legal Maneuvering Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Diminish Worker Vote
Foundation-backed reforms that the NLRB adopted in 2020 (also known as the “Election Protection Rule”) permitted the Seattle Mariners employees to challenge UFCW officials’ ascent to power, which the union accomplished via “card check” – a scheme that bypasses the NLRB secret-ballot election process. The Election Protection Rule permitted the employees to petition for a secret ballot decertification election and vote the union out after the card check occurred. However, the Biden NLRB has already announced a proposal to repeal the “Election Protection Rule” and make card check organizing drives much harder for employees to contest.
In light of that, the one-year period of freedom from union control that the NLRB denied the Seattle Mariners workers is absolutely vital. Without it, UFCW officials could move to foist the union back on the employees through card check in less than a year, and, if the Election Protection Rule has been wiped out by then, the workers may be unable to challenge the card check with a secret ballot vote.
“The game UFCW union officials are playing with Seattle Mariners employees’ rights is sinister, but obvious: Game the system to avoid the full consequences of losing an election among the workers they claimed to ‘represent,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It doesn’t help that the Biden NLRB is simultaneously pursuing policies that make it nigh impossible for employees to free themselves of the control of union officials who attempt such manipulation.”
“Refusing to certify an overwhelming worker vote against a union due simply to union legal maneuvering is disrespecting workers’ free choice rights, plain and simple,” Mix added.
Seattle Mariners Retail Employees Vote Out UFCW Union, Defeat Union Boss Attempt to Block Election Using “Card Check”
UFCW Local 3000 swept out in “double header” as Mariners and Storyville Coffee workers both successfully remove unwanted union
Seattle, WA (July 26, 2023) – Seattle Mariners employees have successfully voted 50-9 to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 3000 union officials from power at the Mariners’ retail stores in T-Mobile Park and the Westlake area of Seattle. The news follows the National Labor Relations Board’s denial of a union attempt to overturn the election. The employees received free legal aid in their effort from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The Mariners’ retail workers filed a petition in April asking National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 19 to hold a vote on whether the union should be removed. The petition followed UFCW union officials’ imposition of union power over the retail shop employees via an October 2022 “card check” drive. “Card check” is a coercive and abuse-prone scheme in which union officials can bypass the secret ballot union election process, and instead attempt to obtain a majority of union authorization cards by demanding them directly from workers.
Over the objection of UFCW union officials, the NLRB Regional Director in May ordered a union decertification election at the request of the Seattle Mariners’ retail employees. Union bosses subsequently filed a Request for Review at the NLRB in Washington, D.C., seeking to halt the election. They argued that a so-called “voluntary recognition bar” should be imposed to block the Mariners’ employees from exercising their right to vote on the union’s removal. However, the NLRB denied the union’s Request for Review on July 25. After NLRB Region 19 certifies the 50-9 vote result, the Seattle Mariners’ retail employees will finally be free from the unwanted UFCW union.
Foundation-Backed Election Protection Rule Safeguards Employees’ Rights
The retail workers were able to challenge union officials’ card check drive thanks to the Election Protection Rule (EPR), a reform to the election rules enacted by the NLRB in 2020 following Foundation advocacy. While union officials pre-EPR were able to manipulate the so-called “voluntary recognition bar” to block employees from voting out a union for at least a year after an employer recognized a union’s supposed card check victory, the EPR granted employees a 45-day window in which to petition for a secret ballot election to challenge the card check result.
The NLRB Regional Director’s May decision noted that, even though the Mariners’ employees filed the petition outside the 45-day window, the “bar” following the card check recognition would still not apply because neither the union nor the employer had followed the proper procedure to ensure that the retail employees were informed of their right to challenge the card check drive. “There is thus no bar to an election in the instant matter,” the decision read.
The process by which workers can challenge card check drives by requesting secret ballot elections was originally established by Foundation attorneys in the Dana Corp. NLRB case. Though this decision was later overturned by the Obama NLRB, “Dana elections” were codified in the EPR.
Predictably, the wildly pro-Big Labor Biden NLRB has announced rulemaking to eliminate the Election Protection Rule, as well as rulemaking to impose harsh penalties on employers that challenge card check drives. Such changes would let unions seize power virtually automatically after a card check drive, with no opportunity for employees to have a secret ballot vote instead.
Seattle Storyville Coffee Employees Also Remove UFCW 3000 Union
Just hours after the NLRB denied UFCW Local 3000 officials’ Request for Review in the Seattle Mariners case, employees of Storyville Coffee Company in Seattle received word that UFCW Local 3000 officials had filed paperwork to end their control at the shop. Storyville employees, led by Paris Hunt, also petitioned for a union decertification vote with free Foundation legal aid. Apparently fearing another loss at the ballot box, UFCW Local 3000 officials pulled out as opposed to facing the will of the workers in an election.
“While the Seattle Mariners’ retail employees were able to shut down UFCW bosses’ scheme to force them under union control without even a vote, workers’ right to get a secret ballot vote is now under severe threat from the Biden NLRB, which is eager to empower the Administration’s union boss allies,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “NLRB officials should look to the Mariners’ employees as real-life examples of workers whose rights would be stripped away if the Election Protection Rule is done away with at Big Labor’s behest.”
“No worker should be trapped under the ‘representation’ of a union they oppose, and at the very least every employee should have a right to cast a private ballot before union bosses gain power in their workplace,” Mix added.
