Penske Truck Rental Employees in Minneapolis and Nashville Seeking Votes to Remove IAM Union Officials
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.”
Mall of America Starbucks Employees Join Rising Movement Seeking to Remove SBWU Union
Starbucks partners at Minneapolis location join the growing list of workers looking to decertify Starbucks “Workers United” union
Minneapolis, MN (July 14, 2023) – Rebecca Person, an employee of the first floor Mall of America Starbucks location outside Minneapolis, MN, has just submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 18 that seek a vote to remove Starbucks Workers’ United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. The Mall of America Starbucks is just the latest in a growing list of Starbucks locations where employees are seeking to oust union officials. Workers from locations in Manhattan, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo are also receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in union decertification efforts.
The union decertification petition contains signatures from a majority of workers at the Mall of America location. The majority support for removing the union is far more than the 30% requirement by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) needed to trigger the NLRB to hold a decertification vote among the workers.
With the workers’ petition filed with the NLRB, the NLRB’s rules dictate that a secret ballot election should be promptly scheduled to determine whether a majority of workers want to end union officials’ power to impose a contract, including forced dues, on the workers. Because Minnesota lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SBWU union officials have the power to enter into an agreement with Starbucks that would require Person and her coworkers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. Meanwhile, in Right to Work states, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary.
Starbucks Workers Increasingly Seek to Vote out SBWU Union Officials
The Mall of America Starbucks workers are just the latest example of Starbucks workers seeking to exercise their right to vote out unwanted union officials. Foundation attorneys are currently assisting Starbucks employees in Manhattan, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, in obtaining union decertification votes.
As with the New York and Pennsylvania locations, the SBWU union only came to power at the Mall of America Starbucks a little over a year ago – meaning workers began attempts to vote out SBWU nearly as soon as legally allowed. Federal labor law prevents workers from exercising their right to remove an unpopular union at least one year after installed.
A contributing factor to the growing worker dissatisfaction with SBWU union officials may be the controversial practice of “salting,” which involves union officials surreptitiously paying union agents to obtain jobs at non-union workplaces to agitate for union control. “Salts” generally hide their union-allied status from both managers and their coworkers, and may quickly depart the workplace once a union has been installed. The New York Post reported that one SBWU union agent was paid nearly $50,000 to “salt” a Buffalo Starbucks location, and concealed her affiliation from both her coworkers and Congress.
The push for decertification votes at Starbucks is part of a growing trend, with the NLRB’s data showing a unionized private sector worker is far more likely to be involved in a decertification effort as their nonunion counterpart is to be involved in a unionization campaign. NLRB statistics also show a 20% increase in decertification petitions last year versus 2021. However, union officials still have many ways to manipulate federal labor law to prevent workers from voting them out, including by filing unrelated or unverified charges against management.
“The deceptive tactics SBWU officials took in gaining control of multiple Starbucks locations are finally coming back to haunt them,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Starbucks partners nationwide are seeing how the union organizers, including those secretly paid by the union pretending to be genuine coworkers, manipulated them to do what is best for union bosses but not in the best interests of rank-and-file workers.”
“These Starbucks workers have joined others in taking the first step in exercising their rights to oust an unwanted union, and we call on SBWU union officials and the NLRB to respect the wishes of these workers who simply want a prompt decertification vote,” continued Mix. “The right of workers to oust a union that lacks majority support should not be subjugated to the interests of incumbent union bosses seeking to retain power against the wishes of rank-and-file workers.”
Healthcare Workers at Cuyuna Hospital Successfully Petition for Votes to Remove Union
NLRB reverses itself after wrongly undercounting number of technical employees seeking vote to remove union
Minneapolis, MN (September 21, 2022) – A vote to remove union representation at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, will move forward after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 18 reversed itself and admitted to undercounting workers’ signatures in support of removing the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from their workplace. National Right to Work staff attorneys filed a Request for Review on August 24, 2022, pointing out that the Region clearly miscounted the number of valid signatures on a union decertification petition. Now that the NLRB has acknowledged its mistake, a new pre-election hearing date is scheduled for later this month.
Employee Laurie Murphy filed the decertification petition for CRMC Unit II technical employees, which includes employees in the laboratory, respiratory therapy, physical therapy and radiology departments, plus licensed practical nurses, engineers, certified occupational therapy assistants, pharmacy technicians, and accredited records technicians.
“CRMC employees would like to work for an organization that doesn’t have to run everything through the union. CRMC is a great company to work for and they care about all of their employees,” Ms. Murphy said in a statement explaining the widespread support among her Cuyuna Regional Medical Center colleagues for removing the SEIU.
“In my opinion, all they are is a middleman that we pay to ‘negotiate’ on our behalf with our employer. Frankly, I feel who better to negotiate on my behalf than myself,” added Murphy. “I don’t see any benefit in having a union at CRMC.”
Under federal law, when the required number of workers in a bargaining unit sign a petition seeking the removal of union officials’ monopoly bargaining powers, an NLRB-conducted secret ballot vote whether to remove the union is triggered. If a majority of workers casting ballots against vote for the union, the union is stripped of its government-granted monopoly “representation” powers.
Those powers let union officials impose contracts on all workers in the workplace, even workers who are not union members and oppose the union. Further, because Minnesota is not a Right to Work state, union-imposed contracts can include mandatory union dues or fees, with nonmember workers fired if they do not pay.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute the NLRB implements, workers possess an specified statutory right to remove an unwanted union through a decertification election. Yet the NLRB has invented out of whole cloth a “contract bar” that blocks workers’ right to hold a decertification election for up to three years after union officials and a company finalize a monopoly bargaining contract.
After miscounting the signatures, the NLRB Regional Director cited the “contract bar” as a reason for dismissing the petition. Had the Region not ultimately reversed itself, that erroneous decision could have blocked a decertification vote for three more years because of the contract bar.
In response, Murphy’s Foundation staff attorneys filed a Request for Review with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., asking them to not only review the dismissal of the petition, citing the undercounting of workers’ signatures, but also to reconsider the “contract bar” given its role in stifling workers’ statutory right to a decertification vote. Before the NLRB could rule the Region, finally admitting its miscount, reversed the earlier ruling not to move forward with the vote the workers had requested.
“We’re glad to see Ms. Murphy and her coworkers able to move forward with their decertification election, clear mistakes by the NLRB all of which, perhaps not coincidentally, served the interests of SEIU union bosses who don’t want to face a vote of rank-and-file workers,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “The fact that a worker needs our legal support and expertise just to get the Labor Board to do really simple math is just the latest example of how the NLRB is biased against workers who oppose coercive unionization.”
Union Seeking to Destroy Ballots of Cuyuna Regional Medical Center Clerical Workers Who Want to Remove SEIU
The technical employees covered by Murphy’s petition are not the only group of workers at Cuyuna Regional Medical Center seeking to free themselves of unwanted SEIU so-called “representation.” Also with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, CRMC employee Terri Larson filed a separate decertification petition for clerical employees working in the business office or medical records department.
The clerical employees’ petition was promptly processed by the NLRB and a mail-ballot decertification election has already taken place. However, before the votes could be counted, the SEIU sought to block the election by filing “blocking charge” allegations. Now, not only are the votes impounded, the NLRB has announced it intends to decide whether or not to destroy the ballots at the request of SEIU lawyers.
“As this situation shows, winning the right to hold a decertification vote is often just the beginning for workers seeking to free themselves from union wanted union ‘representation,’” added Mix. “Biased NLRB-invented procedures give union officials the ability to block the tallying of votes against the union, often indefinitely, leaving workers trapped in union ranks they overwhelmingly oppose.”
