DC-Area ‘Union Kitchen’ Employees Vote 24-1 to Remove UFCW Union
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, March/April 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Foundation now defending workers against union attempt to overturn employee vote
Union Kitchen, a unique grocery concept that helps local DC entrepreneurs get their food products to market, was the target of a dangerous UFCW picket scheme.
WASHINGTON, DC – Ashley Silva, an employee at independent DC-area food store Union Kitchen, could sense in July 2023 that her coworkers had had enough of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in their workplace.
UFCW union officials had been ordering contentious boycotts and pickets on the stores, and some of the demonstrations even required police intervention after union picketers blocked store exits.
“The vast majority of the workers at Union Kitchen are sick and tired of the UFCW’s picketing, harassment of employees, and constant disruptions of our day-to-day work life,” Silva said at the time.
Despite Searing Worker Rejection, UFCW Bosses Trying to Cling to Power
With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Silva filed a decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), asking the federal agency to hold a vote among the employees of Union Kitchen’s five stores on whether the union should be ousted. The vast majority of her coworkers signed the petition.
UFCW union officials levied allegations against Union Kitchen management in an attempt to stop the vote from happening. Despite some delays, Silva and her coworkers cast ballots in October 2023, and a January 2024 vote count revealed that she and her colleagues had voted against the union 24-1.
The union challenged eight employee ballots, meaning the full tally of votes against the union is most likely 32-1.
Once the NLRB certifies this election result, Silva and her coworkers will be free of the union. However, in an attempt to stop this, UFCW officials continue to press the “blocking charges” against Union Kitchen management that they filed at the NLRB before the vote, and have also piled on objections to the election that contain the same basic accusations as the blocking charges.
Blocking charges are often unverified or unrelated charges of employer misconduct that union officials can manipulate to stall a ballot count or a certification of results in a union decertification case.
If the NLRB issues a complaint against an employer based on a union’s “blocking charges,” the decertification process is halted.
Foundation Will Fight UFCW Bid to Overturn Vote
Foundation staff attorneys are defending Silva and her colleagues’ victory at the ballot box from UFCW union officials’ bald-faced attempts to oppose their will.
“We’re happy that Ms. Silva and her coworkers were finally able to exercise their right to vote out a union they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “It’s unfortunate, though hardly surprising, that despite such an overwhelming rejection UFCW union officials won’t take a hint and stop attempting to impose their unwanted so-called ‘representation’ on Union Kitchen employees.
“The Foundation is proud to defend Silva and her coworkers against these union tactics as they seek freedom from coercive unionism,” Semmens concluded.
Multiple Units Oust Teamsters Bosses Thanks to Foundation-Backed NLRB Rule
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2021 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Unpopular Teamsters officials voted out of California, New Jersey workplaces
Reforms urged by Foundation staff attorneys eased Miguel Valle and his coworkers’ near-unanimous effort to vote out unpopular Teamsters officials, who tried to use “blocking charges,” ultimately to no avail.
WASHINGTON, DC – Workers in California and New Jersey who were previously subject to Teamsters bosses’ monopoly bargaining authority have freed themselves from unwanted union control.
The workers received free legal aid from Foundation staff attorneys, and benefited from rule changes at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington pushed for by the Foundation.
In California, Eliseo Haro, an employee at Los Angeles-based KWK Trucking, Inc., submitted a decertification petition with the NLRB because he and his coworkers were being ignored by Teamsters bosses. As Haro puts it, “The union never came in to talk to us, or negotiate a contract, or represent us. They disappeared.”
Haro’s petition was signed by nearly 80 percent of the workers in the 119-employee bargaining unit and called for an NLRB-supervised decertification election, in which KWK employees could vote out the unpopular union officials.
Rather than face an overwhelming defeat in the decertification election, Teamsters bosses chose to walk away. The union disclaimed interest in the unit, and NLRB Region 21 revoked Local 986’s certification as the workers’ monopoly bargaining agent.
New Jersey Decertification Effort Succeeds Despite Union Stall Tactics
In Cinnaminson, New Jersey, Teamsters officials did not immediately leave when a decertification petition was filed by Miguel Valle and his coworkers at a branch of XPO Logistics. Instead, Teamsters lawyers used nearly two months of unnecessary court proceedings to delay the election.
They demanded the vote be held in person at the Teamsters union hall. Foundation attorneys argued that the union lawyers’ requests were merely an effort to delay the vote. Ultimately, as expected, the NLRB’s Regional Director ruled that the election would be conducted by mail.
When Valle and his coworkers finally had their election, they voted 16-2 to remove Teamsters bosses from their workplace.
Foundation-Backed Rule Changes Reduce Needless Election Delays
For workers, just getting a decertification election is often difficult. In some cases, union bosses have created multi-year delays to stymie decertification efforts, trapping workers under union monopoly “representation” and often forced-dues payments they oppose, while they wait for a vote.
Union officials frequently attempt to delay or block decertification votes by filing “blocking charges,” unfair labor practice charges that can be used to hold up an election, even when they have nothing to do with the employees’ dissatisfaction with the union.
Union officials’ ability to use this tactic to block or delay votes has been limited by recent NLRB rulemaking, finalized in 2020. Under the NLRB’s new policy, which draws on comments filed by the National Right to Work Foundation, union charges cannot indefinitely stall employee votes, and in most instances votes occur without delay.
Additionally, as the Foundation advocated in its comments, instead of ballots being impounded for months or even years while “blocking charges” are resolved, the NLRB modified its original proposed rule so that in most cases ballots are tallied and the results are announced after employees vote.
“Union bosses can stick around for years, even when they face overwhelming opposition from rank-and-file workers, because of the legal barriers that protect union officials from decertification votes,” said National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse.
“Thanks to Foundation-backed reforms to the NLRB’s ‘blocking charge’ policy, union officials’ ability to trap workers in union ranks through legal trickery despite overwhelming opposition has been significantly curtailed.”
WV, TX Employees Defend Rights as Biden NLRB Appointee Attempts to Block Cases
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, May/June 2021 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
‘Acting’ GC tries to stop prosecution of union bosses for illegal dues, secret-organizing deal
Marissa Zamora is challenging the authority of NLRB “Acting” General Counsel Peter Ohr, who was installed by Pres. Biden in an unprecedented power grab and began attacking the rights of workers opposed to associating with union officials.
WASHINGTON, DC – President Biden’s unprecedented removal of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Peter Robb, and subsequent installation of forced-unionism zealot Peter S. Ohr as Robb’s “Acting” replacement, quickly threatened workers’ individual rights. It also threatened the independence of the Board itself, including in multiple ongoing cases brought with National Right to Work Foundation legal aid.
In two cases brought by Foundation staff attorneys that are already before the NLRB, Ohr is attempting to stop the Board from ruling against union officials. One is a case for Texas-based nurse Marissa Zamora, which challenges union officials’ ability to hide secret “neutrality agreements” that limit workers’ rights. The other, brought for West Virginia Kroger employee Shelby Krocker, seeks to prosecute union officials for coercing workers into signing dues checkoff authorizations that are supposed to be voluntary.
Former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, who supported the workers in both of these cases, was removed by President Biden just minutes after his inauguration, despite the fact that Robb still had nearly 11 months remaining in his Senate-confirmed four-year term.
This unprecedented and possibly illegal maneuver flies in the face of the law creating the NLRB, which envisioned an independent General Counsel. Since the office of NLRB General Counsel was established in 1947, no sitting General Counsel of the NLRB has ever been fired by a president before the end of their term, even when the White House changed hands.
Zamora’s case progressed to the full NLRB in Washington, D.C., after an NLRB Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dismissed a complaint that former NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb had issued, prosecuting the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) for refusing to disclose to represented employees its secret “neutrality agreement.”
TX Nurse Fights Biden Appointee Move to Shield Union’s Secret Deal
Though Zamora’s Foundation-provided attorneys and Robb had both filed exceptions urging the full Board to reverse the ALJ’s decision, NLRB Acting General Counsel Peter Ohr filed a motion on February 23, 2021, seeking unilaterally to send the complaint back to the NLRB Fort Worth regional office to be dismissed.
So-called “neutrality agreements” are organizing deals struck between union officials and employers, usually without the knowledge of employees in a workplace. They frequently contain provisions that require employers to silence opposition to unionization. In Zamora’s situation, the neutrality agreement was used to limit her ability to inform her coworkers about their right to vote out the union.
Zamora’s opposition brief challenges Ohr’s attempt to kill the case. It argues that the case is already before the full Board, and she “is a full party with a right to have her pending exceptions decided by the Board.” It notes that letting Ohr shut her out at this stage would “infringe on the Board’s exclusive power to adjudicate violations of” federal labor law.
Further, the brief contends that because of Robb’s unlawful removal, Ohr lacks the legal authority to even ask the NLRB to end the case. Allowing “the President to fire the General Counsel at will would do irreparable damage to the NLRB’s function as an independent agency,” the brief says.
In Krocker’s case, NLRB Region 6 in Pittsburgh initially dismissed Krocker’s charge challenging United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) checkoff cards which falsely stated that they “MUST BE SIGNED.”
West Virginia Kroger Employee Stands Up to Union-Allied Ohr
Foundation attorneys successfully appealed this dismissal to General Counsel Peter Robb, who sustained the charge and ordered NLRB Region 6 to issue a complaint prosecuting UFCW Local 400 for the violation.
In fact, Robb ordered Region 6 to issue the complaint on several additional grounds, including maintenance of a checkoff that prohibited employees from ending dues deductions after the expiration of a contract.
After an ALJ declined to rule that UFCW Local 400 officials violated the law with their “MUST BE SIGNED” demands and other unlawful provisions, Krocker’s Foundation staff attorneys and General Counsel Robb both appealed the case to the NLRB. Their appeals have been fully briefed before the Board since September.
After Ohr’s appointment, Region 6 entered into an inadequate informal settlement over Krocker’s objection and filed a motion to send the case back to Region 6.
Biden Appointee Shielding Union Boss Privileges
Krocker’s opposition to that motion argues, as does Zamora’s, that her case is already pending before the full NLRB and that Ohr lacks the authority to divert it away from the Board’s judgment.
“‘Acting’ NLRB General Counsel Peter Ohr’s unabated attacks on Foundation cases seeking to defend workers’ individual rights clearly show how imminent a threat our cases are to union bosses’ coercive and greedy behavior,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “Ohr demonstrates repeatedly that he has no problem with turning the NLRB into the Biden Administration’s tool for stifling the rights of independent-minded workers who dare to stand up to Biden’s union boss allies.”
