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.
New Flyer Employee Slams CWA Union with Federal Charges, Claims Union Lied to Employees to Attain “Majority Status”
Following suspect ‘card check,’ union bosses seek to invalidate worker-backed petition for secret ballot vote to oust union
Shepherdsville, KY (August 9, 2023) – An employee of bus manufacturer New Flyer has filed federal charges against his employer and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, maintaining that CWA officials illegally imposed union control over him and his coworkers despite the union lacking a demonstrated majority support among the workers. The employee, Gregory Mabrey, filed his charges at National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 9 in Cincinnati with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Mabrey’s charges explain that CWA union officials gained power in his workplace through a process called “card check,” which bypasses the NLRB’s standard secret ballot election process for installing a union. Under card check, employees are denied the right to vote in private on whether they want the union in the workplace, and union officials can instead claim majority status by demanding union authorization cards directly from workers.
The card check scheme’s lack of privacy exposes workers to a variety of coercive behaviors from union officials who are seeking to collect cards from a majority of employees in a work unit. Workers often report being told signing the card only requests “more information” about the union or serves some other purpose, even though the card will be equivalent to a “vote” in favor of union representation. Workers have also experienced threats and unwanted home visits during card check campaigns.
Cards Union Bosses Used to Support “Majority Status” Claims Had Multiple Problems
Mabrey’s unfair labor practice charges report that his employer, New Flyer, recognized the CWA union despite multiple flaws with the union’s card check claim of majority status. The charges state that union officials “misrepresent[ed] to employees that the cards were for a single, restricted purpose other than to designate the Union as their representative,” and that “the Employer and CWA relied on authorization cards that employees revoked or cancelled prior to the date of recognition.”
To make matters even worse, the charges also point out that “the card check was based on a unit of employees that was smaller than the Employer-recognized bargaining unit.” This means that, even if CWA bosses hadn’t made misrepresentations or relied on cards that workers had actually revoked, the number of cards they submitted to support their claim of majority status may have been too small, even under the coercive card check regime.
Mabrey’s charges seek an NLRB prosecution of the union and employer for their respective roles in illegally granting CWA union officials monopoly bargaining powers over his coworkers.
NLRB Blocks Workers’ Attempt to Vote Out the Union, Even Amid Deception
Mabrey’s charges come as another New Flyer employee, Megan Sowder, is pressing for the NLRB to accept an employee-backed petition she submitted to the NLRB in June that asks for a secret ballot vote to remove the CWA union. Sowder sought to take advantage of a Foundation-backed reform the NLRB adopted in 2020, which gives workers a 45-day window to file for a secret ballot election after an employer notifies employees that it has recognized a union pursuant to a card check.
Filing for a secret ballot vote in this way counters the NLRB’s so-called “voluntary recognition bar,” which normally locks workers under union power for up to a year or more after a card check recognition.
However, as the Request for Review filed by Sowder’s Foundation staff attorneys points out, NLRB Region 9 wrongly dismissed Sowder’s petition. Although Sowder submitted the requisite number of signatures twice to support her petition for a decertification election (30% or more is required to trigger a vote), NLRB Region 9 dubiously claims that Sowder collected the signatures “too early” and that an arbitration meeting that modifies the unit also nullifies the petition. NLRB Region 9 even claims that it never received all the signatures, despite Sowder’s evidence of faxing them directly to NLRB Region 9.
“The Region’s error has caused severe prejudice to Sowder and the bargaining unit employees’ rights under [the National Labor Relations Act], and review should be granted to correct that error,” Sowder’s Request for Review to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., states.
Biden NLRB Plans to Eliminate Workers’ Ability to Challenge “Card Check” Drives
The New Flyer employees’ cases come as the Biden NLRB is poised to issue a final rule as soon as this month to overturn the 2020 Foundation-backed reforms that allow workers to challenge the imposition of union monopoly bargaining power via card check with a secret ballot election. Foundation attorneys filed comments opposing the Biden NLRB’s proposed rule to nix these provisions.
“This situation demonstrates exactly how rank-and-file workers’ rights will be further trampled if the Biden NLRB moves forward with its attempt to expand union bosses’ card check power and simultaneously restrict workers’ statutory right to hold decertificiation votes to remove unwanted unions,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Even absent the misrepresentations CWA union bosses made to foist union so-called ‘representation’ on workers, such card check drives are inherently prone to union pressure tactics that would be grounds for invalidating an NLRB-supervised vote.”
“Meanwhile, despite a lack of evidence of true majority support, the NLRB has improperly denied two submissions of valid employee signatures from workers simply asking for a vote to challenge the invalid card check recognition,” added Mix. “It is not too late for the Biden Board to stop its rulemaking to eliminate the Election Protection Rule, and give rank-and-file workers some hope that their statutory right to decertify a union they oppose will not be steamrolled by the NLRB’s desire to protect incumbent union power.”
SF Security Officer Slams SEIU Union and Allied Universal with Federal Charges for Discrimination & Unfair Labor Practices
Despite informing both management and union of religious objections to union membership and financial support, employer seized money from worker’s paycheck for union
San Francisco, CA (November 10, 2022) – Thomas Ross, a San Francisco-based security officer employed by Allied Universal, has hit union officials affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and his employer with two sets of federal charges for forcing him to join and financially support the union after he told both parties his religious beliefs forbid union support. He is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Ross filed both federal discrimination charges, which will now be investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and unfair labor practice charges, which will be handled by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Ross is a Christian and opposes union affiliation on religious grounds. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits unions and employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion. Title VII thus forbids forcing individuals to fund or support a union, the activities of which conflict with their religion. It also requires unions and employers to accommodate religious objections to union payments. Yet, according to Ross’ discrimination charges, SEIU union bosses flatly denied a request he made for such an accommodation.
Ross’ unfair labor practice charges, filed at NLRB Region 20, state that SEIU bosses and Allied Universal officials breached basic federal law by telling him that union membership is mandatory. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects private sector workers’ right to abstain from any or all union activities, and forced union membership is prohibited regardless of an individual worker’s reason for not wanting to affiliate with a union.
California’s lack of Right to Work protections for its private sector workers means that union officials are granted the power to force workers to pay them fees or be fired in workplaces where they maintain power. However, under federal law, employees with religious objections cannot be compelled to pay such fees. In Right to Work states, in contrast, no worker can be fired for refusal to financially support a union.
Union’s Discriminatory Demands Violate Both Title VII and Basic Federal Labor Law
According to his discrimination charges, Ross informed both the SEIU union and Allied Universal when he was hired in 2020 that his religious beliefs disallowed union membership and that he needed an accommodation. In addition to ignoring that request, his charges state that on July 20, 2022, “Allied Universal…demanded that I sign a payroll deduction, join the unions, and pay union dues.”
On August 31, 2022, Ross reminded Allied Universal of his religious objection to paying union dues, but on September 15, 2022, Ross’ “employer stated that union membership was compulsory and deducted union fees” from his paycheck without his consent.
Ross’ unfair labor practice charges state that those deductions violate the NLRA, because that statute prohibits the deduction of union dues and fees unless the employee has signed a written authorization. Ross’ discrimination charges argue that both his employer and the union have also violated his rights “under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964” and parallel state non-discrimination laws.
Foundation Attorneys Regularly Win Cases for Workers Facing Religious Discrimination
Workers nationwide frequently turn to the National Right to Work Foundation for free legal aid when union chiefs snub their requests for religious accommodations or otherwise discriminate against them based on their religious beliefs.
This past July, Foundation staff attorneys scored a multi-million-dollar jury verdict for former Southwest flight attendant Charlene Carter, whom Transport Workers Union (TWU) officials subjected to ridicule based on her religious opposition to union activities. This March, also with Foundation aid, Fort Campbell custodial worker Dorothy Frame won a settlement gaining a religious accommodation after Laborers’ (LIUNA) union officials unlawfully questioned her religious belief that she could not support financially the union’s political activities.
“The Foundation is proud to help working men and women who courageously stand up for their beliefs even in the midst of union coercion,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, it’s important to recognize that, regardless of whether an employee’s objection to union affiliation is religious in nature or not, no American worker should ever be forced to subsidize union activities they oppose.”
