Parker O-Rings & Engineered Seals employees petition to end union’s near 50-year “representation” at facility
Lynchburg, VA (February 17, 2026) – Natera Carter, an employee of Parker O-Ring & Engineered Seals, has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a “decertification” election to remove the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) Local 845C labor union from her workplace. The petition was filed with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, a task that includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions.
Carter’s petition was signed by the majority of her 51 coworkers, far exceeding the amount required to trigger an NLRB-supervised secret ballot decertification vote. The workers’ election has been scheduled for February 25th, 2026, and will include all hourly production, lab technicians, maintenance, shipping, receiving, and quality inspection employees at the Lynchburg facility. According to the petition, the union gained monopoly power over the workplace in 1980.
“The workers who decided to bring the union into this workplace are no longer here and now it is time for current employees to have our say,” stated Carter. “We’ve seen the union up close and now we’re joining together to remove it.”
Virginia is one of the 26 states with Right to Work protections that safeguard workers by making union affiliation and dues payment strictly voluntary. Yet, even in Right to Work states, union officials can impose exclusive bargaining control upon all workers in a workplace, even those who oppose the union.
“Virginia’s popular Right to Work law means union officials cannot have workers fired for refusing to join or pay dues to the union, but even in Virginia, workers are forced under union monopoly ‘representation’ they don’t want and never asked for,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This case and the many others like it are a reminder that in addition to the overwhelming majority of workers who choose to remain nonunion, countless others are currently forced under a union monopoly they oppose. That’s just plain wrong.”
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.
