Majorities of workers in both work units want federal Labor Board to administer union decertification vote
Washington, DC (April 17, 2024) – Employees of Penske Truck Rental have submitted petitions seeking votes to remove International Association of Machinists (IAM) union officials from power at Penske locations in the Minneapolis, MN, metro area, and in Nashville, TN. Penske employees Kyle Fulkerson and David Saylor filed the petitions at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Fulkerson, acting on behalf of the Minnesota employees, and Saylor, acting on behalf of the Tennessee employees, both filed petitions containing signatures from a majority of their coworkers, clearly exceeding the 30% support threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules.
Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, IAM union officials have maintained contracts with Penske management that require Fulkerson and his coworkers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. As for Saylor and his coworkers in Right to Work Tennessee, IAM union officials are forbidden from enforcing a contract that mandates union membership and dues payments.
In both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials in a unionized workplace are empowered by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees in the work unit, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of both their forced-dues and monopoly bargaining powers.
Workers in Transportation and Other Industries Increasingly Seek Exit from Unions
Across the country, workers are choosing to affiliate with unions in record-low numbers, according to the most recent Gallup poll on the subject. Workers are also increasingly attempting to exercise their right to vote out union officials they disapprove of. According to NLRB data, since 2020 decertification petition filings have gone up by over 40%. To resist this trend, the Biden NLRB is attempting to make it substantially more difficult for workers to decertify unions, and could soon issue a final rule invalidating the Election Protection Rule. The Election Protection Rule is a policy that contains multiple important safeguards regarding employees’ right to decertify unions they oppose.
In the transportation industry specifically, Foundation staff attorneys have recently assisted drivers and warehouse workers in a number of high-profile union removal efforts. Earlier this month, Foundation attorneys assisted Dependable Highway Express employees in Southern California remove Teamsters union officials who had threatened a worker for revealing info on union boss salaries, and in January they aided Keurig Dr. Pepper distribution workers from three locations across Wisconsin in ousting another Teamsters local.
“Transportation and trucking employees across the country are realizing that monopoly union control is frequently harmful. While workers’ right to vote out union bosses they oppose is vital in every state, it’s especially important in forced-dues states like Minnesota, where union bosses can force workers to pay for ‘representation’ they don’t agree with,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “It’s outrageous this current Administration is intent on paring back this right just to give union officials more tools to expand their coffers and their coercive influence over workers.”
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.
