Posts tagged merit-determination
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.