At Teamsters’ behest, NLRB official blocked earlier election request citing non-statutory NLRB ‘bar’ to decertification after card check unionization

Huntingdon, PA (October 14, 2025) – Shannon Martin, an employee of North Huntingdon EMS/Rescue, has filed a second petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a “decertification” election to remove Teamsters Local 205 union officials as the employees’ “representative.” Martin is receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

Martin’s second request comes after the NLRB’s Regional Director for Region 6 in Pittsburgh shot down her first petition. At the behest of Teamsters union lawyers, the Regional Director dismissed the employees’ request for a secret ballot election. That decision cited the agency’s non-statutory “voluntary recognition bar” that prohibits worker-requested secret ballot elections from being held for at least six months and up to one year after a union gains monopoly bargaining power over workers through the abuse-prone “card check” process.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. The Board-created “bar” cited to stifle Martin and her colleagues’ election request is nowhere to be found in the text of the NLRA, but is rather a bureaucratic invention of the agency that is often used by union officials to block workers from having their voices heard.

In the dismissal notice, the NLRB Regional Director stated that “since the petition was filed eight days short of six-months from the parties’ first bargaining session, a voluntary recognition bar exists and I am therefore dismissing the petition.” The premise upon which Martin’s petition was thrown out was that the union demanded and was granted recognition from North Huntingdon EMS/Rescue to be the workers’ monopoly representative without holding a secret ballot NLRB-administered election. Because the parties had been bargaining for less than six months, the Regional Director dismissed the petition, despite the text of the NLRA stating that the Board “shall direct an election” when a question concerning the union’s status as the employees’ representative is raised.

Because Pennsylvania lacks Right to Work protections, Teamsters union bosses are able to impose union monopoly bargaining contracts that force employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Without a decertification election to remove the union, Martin and her colleagues will likely be forced to pay union dues or fees under threat of termination.

The Foundation has seen a rise in the requests for assistance from independent-minded workers seeking support in their efforts to be free of unwanted union bosses. This includes recent cases in Texas and Kentucky where other workers are seeking to remove the Teamsters from their workplace.

“Teamsters union brass, increasingly unable to hold onto their rank and file, are choosing to silence worker voices by not allowing them the chance to have their wishes expressed via secret ballot elections,” stated National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This attempt to use any means to keep workers trapped in a union they oppose and never even voted for demonstrates why the NLRB should move to eliminate the various Board-created hurdles that workers face when attempting to exercise their statutory right to hold decertification elections.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.