Asheboro, N.C. (August 4, 2004) – Employees at the Goodyear Tires (Goodyear) facility in Asheboro have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election that could strip officials of the steelworkers union hierarchy of their newly granted monopoly representation power over roughly 340 of the company’s employees.

The petition comes on the heels of a controversial “card check” unionization campaign which resulted in NLRB unfair labor practice charges filed by Goodyear employees complaining that revocations of coercively obtained signatures on cards were not honored, and that support for the union had not reached a majority. The employees filed those charges against both Goodyear and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) union for their joint role in imposing an unwanted union upon them.

With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Scott Shaw filed the decertification petition signed by over 30 percent of his coworkers after Goodyear began bargaining with the USWA union despite its lack of majority support.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, if 30% or more of the employees in a bargaining unit sign a decertification petition, the NLRB should conduct a secret ballot election to determine if a majority of the employees wish to decertify the union and stop it from any further “exclusive representation.”

“Goodyear employees should be allowed, once and for all, to have a voice in whether they are unionized,” said Stefan Gleason, Vice President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “It’s an outrage that Goodyear struck a backroom deal with USWA officials to deny these workers their rights.”

Bowing to pressure brought by USWA union operatives, Goodyear signed a so-called “neutrality agreement” that prohibits a traditional and less-abusive secret ballot election process in favor of a coercive “card check” campaign. Under the agreement, union organizers were given full access to employees’ personal information and company facilities to browbeat workers into signing union recognition cards that were counted as “votes” for unionization.

If a decertification election is allowed and is successful, the USWA union would lose its special privilege to act as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. All Goodyear employees then would be free to negotiate their own terms and conditions of employment and could be rewarded on their individual merit.

Meanwhile, the workers’ unfair labor practice charges are under investigation by the NLRB office in Winston-Salem. Numerous workers had submitted letters to Goodyear, and the arbitrator who counted the cards, revoking their previously signed cards. However, USWA officials, Goodyear, and the arbitrator ignored the revocations. The remedy to the unfair labor practices the employees seek is a recount of the cards, taking into consideration the many letters from workers revoking previously signed cards.

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.