SEIU officials attempted to overturn the result of an August 2021 decertification election at Research Medical Center
Kansas City, MO (February 9, 2022) – Hospital workers at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, are now free from control by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Kelly Pirman, an imaging technologist at the hospital, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a union decertification election.
In a news release following the vote Pirman said: “The SEIU has not represented us fairly, nor provided us the value they claim.” Many of Pirman’s coworkers agreed that they no longer wanted SEIU officials’ so-called representation, and Pirman collected enough of their signatures to trigger an NLRB-supervised decertification election. In June 2021, the NLRB announced that the hospital workers voted 203-171 in favor of removing the union.
Despite losing the election, SEIU officials didn’t give up their monopoly bargaining privileges over the hospital staff. Instead, they filed objections to the result with the NLRB. Though the objections concerned only the hospital’s conduct, SEIU lawyers argued the workers’ choice to remove the union should be overturned.
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys submitted a position paper for Pirman, contending the union officials’ objections were not sufficient reason to overturn the election. NLRB Region 13 Director Andrea Wilkes agreed, and on February 8th, 2022, overruled all of the union’s objections. Wilkes certified the decertification election’s results, freeing Pirman and her coworkers at Research Medical Center from SEIU control.
“Although we are pleased that the Regional Director rejected SEIU bosses’ cynical attempt to maintain power over Research Medical Center workers, it shouldn’t take months of legal proceedings to stop union bosses from overturning the results of the vote the union lost,” said National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “Unfortunately, because Missouri workers lack the protection of a Right to Work law, union officials are incentivized to fight to keep unwilling workers under their thumbs, knowing that as long as they remain in power they can force every worker to pay up or be fired.”
“No worker should be forced under a union monopoly they oppose. Missouri can begin to address that injustice by at least protecting workers against being forced to subsidize unwanted representation by passing a Right to Work law to make union financial support strictly voluntary,” added Mix.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
