Earlier this month, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys won a decision at the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) for Johnson Controls Inc. employees seeking to remove the United Auto Worker (UAW) union from their workplace.

Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse and veteran Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman, who provided free legal aid to the workers, recently authored an article for the Federalist Society about the victory and how it advances the rights of workers seeking to free themselves from union monopoly ranks:

The main takeaways from this case are: 1) employers can lawfully withdraw recognition of a union when presented with objective evidence (like an employee signature petition) that the union has lost majority support, and they now face less legal jeopardy for honoring the wishes of their employees than they did under the prior regime; 2) secret ballot elections remain the favored method for determining employees’ representational desires, so if the union is «anticipatory» ousted based upon a majority employee petition but believes it actually possesses majority support, it cannot litigate its way back to power using the slow and prolonged unfair labor practice process, but must file for a secret ballot election; and 3) as noted in the dissenting opinion of Obama appointee Lauren McFerran, the Johnson Controls decision could open the door to periodic recertification elections for unions.

Many employee advocates have long urged that recertification elections are desirable. Unlike politicians who must automatically face periodic elections (a.k.a “recertifications”), current NLRB law “presumes” that unions retain majority status in perpetuity. Yet statistics show that 94% of unionized workers have never voted for the union representing their workplace. James Sherk, Union Members Never Voted for a Union, Heritage Foundation, August 30, 2016. If the NLRB adopts a recertification process, unions could not rely upon outdated doctrines granting them perpetual majority status, but would have to periodically prove their majority support. As National Right to Work Foundation attorneys have long argued, permanently encrusting a labor union on a bargaining unit, with no showing of current employee support, does not lead to workplace stability or protect employees’ right of free choice.

Read the rest here.

Learn more about the decision here.