Employees reject union by over 3-1 margin in vote to free more than 150 workers from union bosses’ forced-dues ranks

Butte, MT (April 6, 2026) – Workers at traffic safety equipment firm Mountain West Holding Company have overwhelmingly voted Laborers International Union (LIUNA) Local 1686 union officials out of power at their Montana workplaces. The final vote tally was 62-19. Employee John Fisher led his colleagues’ effort to free themselves of the union by filing a union decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board in January. Fisher 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, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Fisher’s petition received more than the required threshold of his coworkers’ signatures to trigger the process for the NLRB to schedule a decertification vote. Pursuant to a stipulated election agreement approved by the NLRB, the decertification vote took place among employees at Mountain West Holding Company’s facilities in Billings, Butte, Bozeman, and Missoula.

Montana lacks Right to Work protections for its workers, meaning that union officials can enforce contracts that force private sector employees to pay money to the union or be fired. In contrast, in Right to Work states like Montana’s neighbors Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and North Dakota, union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary and the choice of each worker.

Now that Fisher and his colleagues have voted to remove the LIUNA union from their facilities, they are free of union chiefs’ forced-dues power. They are also free of the LIUNA’s exclusive “representation,” a legal privilege that lets union officials dictate work conditions for every employee in a work unit, even those who voted against or otherwise oppose the union.

“LIUNA union officials’ agenda both inside and outside the workplace didn’t resonate with me and a huge number of my coworkers. It was even worse that they could force us to pay them just to keep our jobs,” commented Fisher. “Our overwhelming vote against the union demonstrates pretty clearly that we’d had enough, and we look forward to continuing to support ourselves and our families free of the union.”

LIUNA Rejected by Mountain West Workers Twice in Handful of Years

This isn’t the first time that Mountain West employees have voted to escape the clutches of LIUNA Local 1686. In 2024, a unit of Mountain West equipment operators based in Billings, MT, led by Michael Horsman, voted to decertify the union in a near-unanimous vote. Horsman also received free Foundation legal assistance.

Foundation attorneys have noticed a marked increase in worker requests for help in decertifying unpopular unions. NLRB statistics indicate that in 2025, decertification petition filings were up almost 40 percent from 2020.

“Mr. Fisher and his colleagues sent a strong message to LIUNA union officials with their vote, as their work unit spanned well over 150 workers all across the Big Sky State,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Foundation attorneys were proud to help them exercise their right to free themselves. But it’s outrageous that, despite how heavy the opposition to the union was among his coworkers, LIUNA bosses still had the power to force them to pay dues as a condition of employment.

“Workers in Montana and across America deserve the protection of a Right to Work law, so they can freely decide whether or not union officials at their workplace have earned their financial support,” Mix added.

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.