With landslide 15-3 vote against union, Hygrade workers join other PA-based metal workers who ousted the Steelworkers union this year

Bethlehem, PA (November 10, 2023) – Metal workers at Hygrade Metal Moulding Manufacturing, a Bethlehem-based metal fabricator, have voted 15-3 to remove unpopular Steelworkers union officials from their facility. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) held the election on November 9 at Hygrade’s headquarters. Following the NLRB’s certification of the vote, the Steelworkers union will lose its monopoly bargaining control over the Bethlehem facility.

The election follows Hygrade employee Michael Soto’s submission of a majority petition last month asking the NLRB to conduct an election to oust the union – also known as a “decertification vote” – at his workplace. He received free legal aid in submitting his petition from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Because Pennsylvania lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector employees, Steelworkers union officials entered into agreements that forced Soto and his coworkers to pay union dues just to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary. However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials can impose their monopoly bargaining powers over every employee in a work unit, even those who voted against the union or oppose its presence. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of this privilege.

“Steelworkers union officials didn’t stand up for our interests, yet they still had control over our workplace and were taking our dues money,” commented Soto. “My coworkers threw big support behind the petition, and now we have freed ourselves from the Steelworkers, as is our right under federal law.”

Steelworkers Already Faced Overwhelming Rejection by NW Pennsylvania Metal Workers Earlier This Year

Soto and his coworkers’ Foundation-backed election victory is the second rejection that Pennsylvania Steelworkers union officials have had to face this year. In January, Latrobe Specialty Metals workers in Venango County, PA, successfully booted out Steelworkers union officials who tried to ratify an unpopular contract with the employer behind the workers’ backs. The maneuver was meant to manipulate a non-statutory NLRB policy known as the “contract bar” to keep the union in power despite workers’ vote to remove it. The NLRB eventually rejected this gambit, and other union objections to the election result didn’t succeed. The Latrobe Specialty Metals workers were then free of the unwanted union.

Biden NLRB Putting More Restrictions on Workers’ Right to Remove Unions

Soto and his coworkers’ victory comes as the Biden NLRB in Washington, D.C., is attempting to make it more difficult for workers to exercise their right to remove unwanted unions, while giving union officials more tools to gain power in a workplace without even a vote. The NLRB is expected to soon issue a final rule overturning the Election Protection Rule, a Foundation-backed 2020 reform which made commonsense improvements to the decertification process.

The Biden NLRB’s proposed rule, among other things, will give union bosses the power to use “blocking charges,” or unproven allegations of employer misconduct, to prevent workers from voting to decertify a union. The proposed rule will also strip workers of the ability to file for a secret ballot election after a union installs itself via “card check,” a coercive process that bypasses the NLRB’s standard election process and instead permits union bosses to collect cards from workers (often through strong-arm tactics) that are counted as “votes” for the union.

“National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys are proud to help workers exercise their free choice rights and vote out union officials that don’t serve their interests,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While we’re happy that Mr. Soto and his coworkers have ousted a union they don’t want, that right is at risk as the Biden Administration is charging forward on giving its union boss political allies more tools to maintain their forced-representation and forced-dues powers over workers – just ahead of the 2024 election.”

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.