Posts tagged decertification petition
Michigan-Based Rieth-Riley Asphalt Worker Submits Legal Brief Urging 6th Circuit to Protect Workers’ Right to Vote Out Unpopular Union
July 28, 2025 // While Kent and his fellow employees were eventually able to exercise their right to vote on the IUOE, the NLRB in 2022 dismissed his petitions and halted the election, declining to count the already-cast ballots just hours before the vote tally, calling it a “merit-determination” dismissal. This dismissal was based on unfair labor practice allegations the IUOE filed against Rieth-Riley management in 2018. But the NLRB never held a hearing on whether those alleged practices had any connection to Kent and his coworkers’ desire to oust the union. Kent’s brief urges the Sixth Circuit to use Rieth-Riley Construction Co. as an opportunity to invalidate the NLRB’s “merit-determination” dismissal policy. The brief also asks the Court to order the NLRB to take the long-overdue step of counting the ballots in Mr. Kent’s decertification election, so he and his coworkers can properly exercise their right to vote on the union.
Commentary: Workers Need More Transparency from Unions
June 5, 2025 // We’re not labor experts or lawyers. We’re too busy doing our day jobs. Unions should be required to disclose a lot more information. Things such as who funds unionization drives, which other unions or groups they’re affiliated with, and whether they’re paying workers to push unionization. This information could have changed the outcome at my old Trader Joe’s store. The best system would equip workers with the facts well before they’re expected to vote. If workers unionize, unions should be required to more regularly provide some of this timely information. Additionally, the Department of Labor should publish the data more often and in a more user-friendly format. For instance, at my old store, we didn’t know that the union officers would be taking salaries from the union — we only found out 18 months later, and we had never agreed to them, which upset many of my co-workers who had supported unionization.
San Diego-Area Reliance Metal Center Employees Overwhelmingly Vote to Remove Teamsters Union Officials
September 9, 2024 // The successful decertification at Reliance Metal Center comes as decertification petition filings have gone up over 40 percent since 2020 (according to NLRB data) and workers are joining unions in record low numbers. Despite workers’ desire to get away from unions that don’t serve their interests, the Biden-Harris NLRB recently issued a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. One part of the new rule lets union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference.
AT&T Employees Nationwide Continue Winning Efforts to Remove Unwanted CWA Union Bosses Imposed Through ‘Card Check’
September 5, 2024 // Michael Swift, an In-Home Expert for AT&T Mobility, filed the “decertification petition” with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of his coworkers across four AT&T Mobility locations in Mississippi. Marquita Jones, a Louisiana-based In-Home Expert, did the same for her colleagues across four Louisiana locations. If the AT&T Mobility In-Home Experts win their decertification efforts, they will join well over 800 AT&T employees from across California, Texas, and Tennessee, who have also successfully challenged CWA card checks. Under card check, union organizers bypass the secret ballot election process and instead collect cards face-to-face from employees that are then counted as “votes” for the union.
Healthcare Workers at HRI Hospital Win Campaign to Remove Unwanted SEIU Union Bosses
June 25, 2024 // Kpodo filed the petition on June 17 with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Kpodo’s petition contained support from a majority of employees in the bargaining unit made up of registered nurses, mental health workers, unit secretaries, dietary, utility servers, and switchboard workers. Rather than contest the election, which had the backing of a majority of employees who would have been eligible to vote, SEIU union officials conceded defeat days after the decertification petition was filed by announcing their intention to disclaim recognition. Soon after, on June 24, 2024, the NLRB officially recognized that the SEIU was no longer the monopoly bargaining representative of the employees, meaning Kpodo and her colleagues had won their campaign to remove the union.
WASHINGTON D.C.: Sofitel Lafayette Square Employees Have Successfully Obtained Secret Ballot Vote to Remove Unite Here Union from Hotel
May 28, 2024 // After Unite Here union officials imposed union control over hotel employees without a secret ballot vote, workers at Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square have successfully obtained an election to remove the union. Sofitel employee Mwandu Chibwe submitted on May 15 a petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a decertification election at her workplace. Ms. Chibwe is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Penske Truck Rental Employees in Minneapolis and Nashville Overwhelmingly Vote to Remove Machinists Union
May 17, 2024 // The Minneapolis and Nashville-based workers are not the only Penske employees to remove unwanted union so-called “representation” with legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation. In 2022, every worker but one as a Penske facility in Indiana signed a petition seeking to decertify the Teamsters union officials at that location. Before an NLRB-supervised decertification election was scheduled, Teamsters officials issued a statement, disclaiming representation in an apparent attempt to spare themselves the embarrassment of an overwhelming vote by workers to reject the union’s so-called “representation.”
KIPP St. Louis Charter High School Educators to Vote This Week on Whether to Oust AFT Union Bosses
May 14, 2024 // “AFT union officials haven’t stood up for us,” commented Johnston. “I think the majority of my coworkers agree that they’ve only made it harder for us to help our students succeed, especially through a divisive strike order, and that’s a trend I hope we can reverse with this vote. We hope the election proceeds without delay and without interference from union officials.” The NLRB has scheduled a vote to occur on Friday, May 17. According to Johnston’s petition, the vote will occur among “College and Career Advisors, English Language Learners, Leads, Lead Teachers, Learning Support Teachers, Mental health Professionals, School Nurses, Special Ed. Teachers, Specials Teachers, Speech Language Pathologists, Virtual Learning Facilitators, Behavior Support Specialists, High School Registrars, Long Term Subs, Office Coordinators, Paraprofessionals, Permanent Building Subs and Receptionists” at the school.
Somerset, NJ, Nissan Parts Distribution Center Employees File Petition for Vote to Kick Out UAW Union
April 5, 2024 // Michael Oliver, an employee of Nissan North America’s parts distribution center in Somerset, NJ, has just filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a workplace vote to remove United Auto Workers (UAW) officials from his workplace. Oliver filed the petition with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
Ontario, CA-Based Dependable Highway Express Employees Force Out Teamsters Local 63 Union Officials
April 3, 2024 // Prior to their ouster, Teamsters union officials stirred tension in the workplace by threatening Cwiek, who in January sent letters to his coworkers containing publicly-available Department of Labor data on Teamsters bosses’ salaries. In retaliation for Cwiek sending the letters, a union official appeared at Cwiek’s workplace the next day, made accusations against him, and threatened that Cwiek wouldn’t be working at Dependable Highway Express by the next contract period. These types of threats are illegal under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which protects employee speech critical of union officials, and protects employees’ right to refrain from union activities if they so choose. With Foundation aid, Cwiek separately filed federal charges against Teamsters Local 63 in February over this behavior. That charge was dropped in light of the union’s disclaimer of interest, and Cwiek remains employed at Dependable Highway Express. “I am deeply troubled by the blatant retaliatory actions taken by officials at Teamsters Local 63 in response to expressing the views of myself and several other hard-working drivers at Dependable Highway Express,” Cwiek commented at the time. “We will not be deterred by their bullying tactics and the baseless accusations they levy against myself and others.