Workers Nationwide Continue Efforts to Oust Steelworkers Officials
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, January/February 2023 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Successful ousters in Louisiana and New Jersey emphasize importance of protecting worker votes
Michael Cobourn and his coworkers were forced to pay union dues while USW union bosses seemed to be loafing it at their workplace. With Foundation aid, they ousted the union.
WASHINGTON, DC – In the space of just a month, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys successfully aided groups of workers in New Jersey and Louisiana in voting out United Steelworkers (USW) union officials they opposed. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certified both votes.
In Louisiana, Ryne Fox led his coworkers at GEO Specialty Chemicals to a decisive victory over USW officials, while Michael Cobourn did the same with his fellow workers at Gold Bond Building Products in New Jersey.
Both cases demonstrated the struggles workers face when seeking to “decertify” union officials whom they no longer want in power. In Louisiana, Fox had to time the filing of his coworkers’ petition seeking a decertification vote to fall within a tiny window of days imposed by the “contract bar,” a union boss-friendly NLRB policy that protects union officials from being voted out of a workplace for up to three years after union bosses and management finalize a contract.
Cobourn and his colleagues, in addition to having to deal with the “contract bar,” work in the non-Right to Work state of New Jersey — meaning they were forced to pay money to the union just to keep their jobs during the entire time they were forbidden by the “contract bar” from ejecting the union. In contrast, Right to Work states protect private sector workers from being fired merely for refusal to pay dues or fees to union officials of whom they disapprove. “My coworkers and I were paying money to the Steelworkers union constantly, yet the union didn’t seem to be doing anything for us,” commented Mr. Cobourn.
Although the efforts in Cobourn’s and Fox’s workplaces are evidence that Steelworkers union officials nationwide place their own interests above the workers they claim to “represent,” the most heinous example of such behavior is ongoing in Franklin, Pennsylvania.
There, Foundation-assisted metal workers at Latrobe Specialty Metals/Carpenter Technology are holding their own in defending their decertification petition against Steelworkers officials’ claims that the “contract bar” should invalidate the petition.
PA Workers Score Victory in Fight Against Election-Blocking Steelworkers Chiefs
While invoking the “contract bar” alone is anti-worker, Steelworkers officials in Pennsylvania claimed that a contract they unilaterally “ratified” this past summer after workers had voted against it twice should trigger the “contract bar.” Steelworkers officials had even told workers that the contract would only be “activated” if workers voted for it. But once they got wind of the workers’ decertification push, the officials “ratified” the unpopular contract secretly so they could, as one union official outrageously said during a hearing, “protect the integrity of the union.
Foundation staff attorneys representing the employee who submitted the petition, Kerry Hunsberger, have so far beaten back union officials’ attack on worker free choice. On November 18, 2021, an NLRB Regional Director rejected union bosses’ attempt to block the vote and ordered that an election proceed.
‘Contract Bar’ Encourages Union Officials to Impose Unpopular Contracts
“Workers across the country are increasingly exercising their right to vote out union officials they oppose, and we at the Foundation are happy to aid them,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, we’re also acutely aware of the obstacles that stand in the way of this freedom, and one of those, which Steelworkers officials seem to have no reservations about exploiting, is the ‘contract bar.’”
“The unjustified ‘contract bar’ is always wrong because it prevents workers from voting out unions they oppose when they want. But even worse, this NLRB-invented doctrine actually incentivizes union officials to rush and impose unpopular, self-serving contracts for the very purpose of insulating the union’s forced representation powers from a vote of the workers union officials claim to ‘represent,’” Mix added.
Foundation Attorneys & PA Metal Workers Fight Steelworkers Union Contract Deception
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, November/December 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Union bosses lied to metal workers and covertly signed forced-dues contract to keep grip on power
In NLRB documents, Steelworkers union officials openly defended their deception of employees, calling such behavior “irrelevant” to whether they should remain in power.
FRANKLIN, PA – Workers under the thumb of union bosses have many reasons to oppose the union’s “representation.” It could be they oppose a bad contract the union negotiated, or maybe it is the union’s divisive political activity for candidates they oppose. Whatever the reason, workers have a right under federal labor law to vote to free themselves of such unwanted union “representation.”
But federal labor law also has no shortage of workarounds for union bosses bent on clinging to their monopoly bargaining power over workers. Kerry Hunsberger and her coworkers at Latrobe Specialty Steel’s Franklin, PA, facility are currently defending their right to throw out unpopular Steelworkers union officials, after the union chiefs secretly signed a contract workers had voted down twice.
Steelworkers Officials Tried to Dodge Employee Accountability
Steelworkers chiefs did so to activate a so-called “contract bar” and remain in power at the plant when they knew a decertification election was coming. Steelworkers officials held two ratification votes to make workers think they had control over whether the contract went into effect. But in reality, union officials have no legal obligation under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute that governs private sector labor relations, to even conduct such a ratification vote, much less heed the workers’ actual vote tally.
The pro-union boss National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) created out of whole cloth the “contract bar” policy. It immunizes union officials from employee-backed attempts to vote out a union for up to three years after union bosses and management finalize a contract — even a contract that isn’t supported by a majority of workers.
Hunsberger’s petition asking the NLRB to hold a vote to remove the union contains the requisite number of signatures under NLRB rules, but union officials argue the “contract bar” should block the election anyway.
Union Bosses Ignored Two Votes by Workers Rejecting Forced-Dues Contract
The Latrobe Specialty Steel workers first voted July 25 on the contract drawn up by Steelworkers union officials. The workers soundly rejected the contract, and Hunsberger began collecting employee signatures for a decertification petition shortly afterwards.
According to documents and transcripts filed with the NLRB, when Steelworkers union officials discovered a decertification petition was circulating, they secretly and hurriedly signed the unpopular contract on July 28, without telling the employees or the employer, in an attempt to activate the “contract bar” rule and avoid being voted out.
The slapdash contract lacked basic In NLRB documents, Steelworkers union officials openly defended their deception of employees, calling such behavior “irrelevant” to whether they should remain in power. elements, like start and end dates. Even though the union now claims this contract was immediately in effect on July 28, union officials held a new employee ratification vote on August 1, encouraging workers to “ratify” the contract. But the union bosses never told the workers their “vote” was a meaningless sham because union officials had already signed the forced-dues contract in secret.
Hunsberger’s decertification petition was filed at 2:00 PM on August 1, just hours before the sham contract vote occurred. As with the previous vote, the workers rejected the contract by a lopsided margin. But later that night, at around 9:00 PM, union officials suddenly announced to the employer that the contract was already in effect and the employee ratification “vote” was irrelevant because of the union bosses’ covert signing on July 28.
In sworn testimony, one union boss admitted that Steelworkers union bosses execute contracts despite employees voting them down, and that union officials deceived the Latrobe workers and ignored their votes in this case “to protect the integrity of the union.” Apparently the Steelworkers bosses’ lust for monopoly bargaining power and compulsory union payments takes precedence over the actual wishes of the rank-and-file workers union officials purport to “represent.”
‘Contract Bar’ Encourages Unions to Force Through Unpopular Contracts
“Steelworkers union bosses drew up a contract that my coworkers and I hated, so naturally we wanted them out of our workplace and out of our pocketbooks. But to add insult to injury, they apparently didn’t even think they owed us a duty of honesty,” said Hunsberger.
“This entire ordeal has been incredibly frustrating and we are grateful for the help of the National Right to Work Foundation in defending our right to vote the union out.”
Kerry Hunsberger’s Foundationbacked brief defending her and her coworkers’ rights states that the Steelworkers’ contract ploy is “nothing more than a smokescreen, concocted by a desperate and unpopular union to entrench itself and bar employee free choice” under federal law.
“The ‘contract bar’ arbitrarily blocks, often for years, workers’ statutory right under federal law to vote out union officials they oppose. Worse, it encourages union officials to cynically impose a contract at all costs, especially when union bosses know rank-and-file workers would see such a contract as a reason to get rid of so-called union ‘representation,’” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “This case presents an easy choice for the NLRB: defend the rights of rank-and-file workers, or side with Steelworkers union officials, who repeatedly misled those workers and disregarded their votes simply to protect union power. The case also demonstrates that there is no such thing as ‘union democracy’ in America.”
After 18 Months, Mountaire Farms Workers Finally Oust Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2022 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Overwhelming vote against UFCW follows NLRB shredding of first ballots
Employees at Mountaire Farms in Delaware fought “contract bar” delays from tyrannical UFCW union officials for almost two years. Finally, they’ve overwhelmingly voted out the union.
SELBYVILLE, DE – Almost two years after their initial attempt, Mountaire Farms poultry employees in Delaware have decisively voted to remove United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials from their workplace. The drawn-out ordeal demonstrates how the “contract bar,” a controversial National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) policy, unjustly traps workers in union ranks they oppose.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute the NLRB implements, workers possess an enumerated statutory right to remove an unwanted union through a decertification election. However, the NLRB has invented out of whole cloth a “contract bar.” The “contract bar” halts workers’ right to hold a decertification election to remove a union they oppose for up to three years after union officials and a company finalize a monopoly bargaining contract.
NLRB Chucks Workers’ Votes Citing ‘Contract Bar’
Mountaire Farms workers voted in an NLRB-supervised decertification election in June 2020, but UFCW lawyers appealed the case to the full Labor Board in Washington, D.C., and were able to get the ballots impounded. After a divided NLRB ruled for the union bosses in April 2021, hundreds of cast ballots were destroyed without being counted.
The June 2020 vote was requested by Mountaire employee Oscar Cruz Sosa, who received free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys. Cruz Sosa had the support of hundreds of his coworkers when he submitted his petition to the NLRB requesting a vote.
Initially, an NLRB regional official rejected union arguments that the decertification effort was blocked due to the “contract bar,” and the election was held. However, UFCW union lawyers appealed that decision to the full Board, which impounded the ballots while the appeal was considered.
Cruz Sosa’s Foundation attorneys urged the Board to reject the UFCW’s attempt to impose the “contract bar.” More importantly, they urged the Board to eliminate the bar completely because it is not found in the text of the NLRA, and serves only to protect unpopular union bosses from worker accountability. As the brief filed by Foundation staff attorneys pointed out, the only “bar” in the text of the NLRA states that workers must wait one year after an election before holding another vote, making the threeyear “contract bar” particularly egregious.
Nevertheless, in an April 2021 ruling, a divided Board sided with union lawyers, upheld the “contract bar,” and threw out the ballots cast by workers at the 800-employee facility. As a result, the employees were forced to wait almost another year, all the while subjected to forced union dues, for the “contract bar” to expire so they could restart the process for a decertification election.
Finally, without the barrier of the NLRB’s “contract bar” policy the workers submitted another petition to hold a vote to remove the UFCW in October 2021.
Landslide Vote Against Union Highlights Injustice of Anti-Worker ‘Contract Bar’ Policy
In the subsequent vote that concluded in December 2021, the workers overwhelmingly rejected the union with 356 of 436 votes counted for removing the union. The workers are finally free of unwanted union “representation,” nearly two full years after they started their effort to remove the union, which was highly unpopular among rank-and-file Mountaire Farms employees.
“The overwhelming final vote tally emphasizes the injustice of the decision to continue the Board-invented ‘contract bar,’ which resulted in the destruction of hundreds of ballots. From the outset it was clear how little support UFCW officials really had,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “This case is yet another example of how the NLRB has twisted the law to protect union boss power at the expense of the statutory rights of rank-and-file employees.”
“We’re under no illusions that the Biden NLRB, stacked with former union officials, will end this longstanding impediment to workers’ right to free themselves of an unwanted union. But this saga demonstrates why the injustice that is the non-statutory ‘contract bar’ must be ended by a future Board,” LaJeunesse added.
Push to Remove UFCW Union Could End Pro-Union Boss “Contract Bar” Policy
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2020 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Non-statutory NLRB policy hinders workers’ right to vote out an unwanted union
Employees at the Selbyville, DE, Mountaire Farms plant rally to vote out unpopular UFCW honchos from their workplace, as union lawyers scramble to block the workers’ votes from being counted.
WASHINGTON, DC – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has announced that it will review the so-called “contract bar” doctrine, which prevents employees from exercising their right to vote an unpopular union out of their workplace for up to three years if union officials and their employer have finalized a monopoly bargaining contract.
This is the latest development in a case by a Selbyville, Delaware-based Mountaire Farms poultry employee, Oscar Cruz Sosa, against the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union. Cruz Sosa submitted a petition in February for a vote on whether Local 27 should be removed as monopoly bargaining agent in his workplace. The petition was signed by hundreds of his coworkers, more than the percentage required to trigger such a vote.
Worker Obtains Foundation Help after Union Attempts to Block Vote
After he submitted the petition, UFCW bosses immediately claimed that the “contract bar” should block Cruz Sosa and his coworkers from even having an election, because the monopoly bargaining agreement between Mountaire and the union had been signed less than three years earlier.
Cruz Sosa then obtained free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in defending his and his coworkers’ right to vote. With Foundation aid, he also hit UFCW agents with federal unfair labor practice charges for imposing an illegal forced-dues clause on the workplace and threatening him after he submitted the petition.
When the NLRB Regional Director in Baltimore heard the election case, he ruled that the union contract contains an unlawful forced-dues clause that mandates workers immediately pay union dues upon hiring or be fired. Under NLRB precedent, an illegal forced-dues clause means the “contract bar” cannot apply, allowing the vote to proceed.
UFCW’s Desperate Attempt to Block Vote Triggers NLRB Review of “Contract Bar”
Despite the longstanding precedent supporting the Regional Director’s ruling, UFCW union lawyers filed a Request for Review, asking the full NLRB to reverse the Regional Director and halt the election.
In response, Cruz Sosa’s Foundation staff attorneys opposed the union’s efforts to block the vote. They also argued that, if the Board were to grant the union’s Request for Review, it should also reconsider the entire “contract bar” policy, which has no statutory basis in the NLRA. The Foundation’s legal brief noted that the “contract bar” runs counter to the rights of workers under the NLRA, which explicitly include the right to vote out a union a majority of workers oppose.
Just hours after the voting process in the decertification election had begun, the NLRB issued its order granting the union’s Request for Review, while also accepting the Foundation’s request to reconsider the entire “contract bar” doctrine. The order noted “that it is appropriate for the Board to undertake in this case a general review of its ‘contract bar’ doctrine.”
Given the precedential import of this case, the NLRB solicited amicus briefs on whether the “contract bar” should be allowed to stand. UFCW officials, still desperate to throw a wrench in Cruz Sosa and his coworkers’ effort to vote them out, demanded that the NLRB rescind its request for amicus briefs in the case, but that effort was quickly rebuffed.
“We urge the NLRB to swiftly overturn this outrageous non-statutory policy, which lets union bosses undermine for up to three years the free choice of workers that is supposed to be at the center of federal labor law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse. “The very premise of the NLRB-created ‘contract bar,’ that union bosses should be insulated from worker decertification efforts, is completely backwards.”
LaJeunesse added: “Union officials across the country use all types of tactics to get workers into unions but rely on government power and legal tricks to prevent them from getting out.”
Delaware Poultry Worker Charges UFCW Brass with Illegal Dues Deductions, Threats
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, July/August 2020 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation attorneys assist worker leading effort to oust unpopular union
Employees at the Selbyville, DE, Mountaire Farms plant were subjected to an illegal forced-dues clause by UFCW union bosses, who for months have also tried to block their right to vote on whether union officials deserve to stay.
SELBYVILLE, DE – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Mountaire Farms employee Oscar Cruz Sosa hit United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 union bosses with federal unfair labor practice charges. The charges assert that union officials violated his and his coworkers’ rights by enforcing an illegal forced-dues provision in the monopoly bargaining contract, and that union bosses threatened him for spearheading a petition for a vote to remove the union.
Cruz Sosa’s charges come after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 5 Director in Baltimore rejected union arguments that the decertification election Cruz Sosa and his coworkers requested should be blocked. Under a controversial NLRB-created policy known as the “contract bar,” employees’ statutory right to hold a decertification vote to remove a union can be blocked for up to three years when a union contract is in place.
However, under longstanding precedent the “contract bar” to decertification does not apply when the monopoly bargaining contract in place contains an unlawful forced-dues clause.
Worker Deflects Union Legal Attack by Exposing Illegal Forced-Dues Clause
Prior to this charge, the NLRB Region 5 Director found that the contract between Mountaire Farms and UFCW union officials illegally required workers to immediately pay union dues upon being hired, instead of providing new hires a 30-day grace period the federal labor statute and longstanding precedent require. Because Delaware lacks Right to Work protections for its employees, Cruz Sosa and his coworkers can be required to pay union fees to keep their jobs.
The NLRB Region 5 Director thus ruled that the vote Cruz Sosa and his coworkers requested should proceed, and scheduled the vote to decertify the union. Cruz Sosa’s unfair labor practice charge, citing that decision’s finding that the forced-dues clause is unlawful, asks the NLRB to order union officials to refund all dues and fees seized from him and his coworkers under the auspices of that illegal clause.
Even after they were unable to block the election with the “contract bar,” UFCW union officials did not give up. In fact, union lawyers have initiated at least three other “blocking charges” against the employer in a last-ditch effort to block the vote, another common tactic used by union bosses to halt or delay workers’ attempts to vote them out.
UFCW union officials’ attempts to stifle the decertification effort didn’t end there. They also asked that any vote be delayed and changed to a“mail-in” vote, even though it had already been scheduled to take place in person on the premises where the workers work every day. In the responses to the union attempts to scuttle the planned vote, Cruz Sosa’s Foundation-provided attorneys argued that the vote should go forward as scheduled, because on-site elections are the NLRB’s preferred method for conducting elections, and the on-site vote was announced to workers weeks ago.
Cruz Sosa also alleged that a UFCW agent came to his house uninvited back in March. The agent warned him “that the decertification process being undertaken was ‘illegal’” and that a court battle was coming, according to his charge filed at NLRB Region 5.
Union Agents Threaten Worker after He Attempts to Exercise Rights
Cruz Sosa’s charge states that this was “threatening” and “coercive behavior” and a clear attempt to restrain him and his coworkers in the exercise of their right under the National Labor Relations Act to vote out an unwanted union.
“The threats and dues deductions in this case show how union bosses regularly trample workers’ rights in order to keep forced dues rolling into their coffers,” observed National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “We hope that NLRB Region 5 will immediately prosecute the union for these violations, and ultimately order the union to refund all dues and fees collected from Mountaire Farms workers under the unlawful forced-dues clause.”
Semmens continued: “While UFCW officials were caught red-handed in this case, these types of forced union dues abuses will continue until Delaware workers have the protection of a Right to Work law, which ensures that all union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.”
