Toledo-area scrap metal employees and Wooster Frito-Lay warehouse workers get union ‘decertification votes’ certified over union bosses’ objections

Ohio (December 12, 2024) – Hundreds of employees from across Northern Ohio have voted in favor of removing Teamsters union control at their workplaces. The elections, both certified this month by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), occurred at Wooster, OH, Frito-Lay warehouses and scrap metal firm Omnisource’s Toledo, OH, facility, which are under the control of Teamsters Local 52 and Teamsters Local 20, respectively.

Frito-Lay employee Dusty Hinkle and Omnisource employee Daniel Caughhorn submitted petitions in October 2023 and August 2024 respectively, asking the NLRB to hold union decertification elections among their coworkers at their facilities. Hinkle and Caughhorn both received free legal aid in filing their petitions from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Both Hinkle’s and Caughhorn’s petitions contained a sufficient number of signatures to trigger a vote under NLRB rules. Despite workers voting in both elections against Teamsters union control, Teamsters union officials filed objections against Frito-Lay and Omnisource management in an attempt to overturn the election results.

However, in both cases regional NLRB officials tossed the union objections and certified the workers’ votes. Barring an attempt by Teamsters Local 20 officials to file a Request for Review to the NLRB in Washington, DC, within the next few days, both the Omnisource and Frito-Lay employees – over 430 in total – will have cut all ties with the Teamsters unions.

Because Ohio lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, Teamsters officials enforced contracts that required Hinkle, Caughhorn, and their colleagues to pay union dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In contrast, in Right to Work states, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary. Now that the Frito-Lay and Omnisource employees have voted out the Teamsters, they are free both of union bosses’ forced-dues demands and their ability to impose one-size-fits-all contracts on the workplace.

Workers Across Country Reject Teamsters ‘Representation’ and Coercive Political Positions

Foundation attorneys have recently assisted a number of workers from across industries in obtaining votes to eject Teamsters union officials. Within the last two months, truck drivers from Georgia, California, Virginia, and New Jersey have successfully booted out Teamsters union officials or initiated removal efforts with Foundation aid.

Beyond Teamsters-controlled workplaces, NLRB data indicates an over 50% increase in the number of decertification petitions filed annually over the last four years. Despite that, Biden-Harris NLRB bureaucrats recently repealed key reforms (known collectively as the “Election Protection Rule”) that made it easier for workers to request decertification elections. Now, union officials have substantially more power to stop workers from even obtaining an election to remove a union, and can also stop workers from requesting decertification elections to challenge a union’s ascent to power via “card check,” an unsecure process that bypasses the traditional secret-ballot vote process.

“Teamsters union officials continue to lose support from the very workers they claim to ‘represent’, and these cases demonstrate yet again why every worker, in Ohio and nationwide, deserves the protection of a Right to Work law so they can decide for themselves whether or not to financially support union officials’ activities,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “While we’re glad these workers have succeeded in freeing themselves from unwanted unionization, it should not require months of litigation and overcoming attempts by union lawyers to overturn the workers’ votes.

“This case shows yet again that despite what local and national Teamsters union bosses claim, they don’t actually speak for the rank-and-file they claim to ‘represent’ and in fact have no qualms about attempting to disenfranchise those workers to trap them in union ranks they oppose,” 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.