Union bosses bypassed secret ballot election with abuse-prone process, but hundreds of workers in each unit now back election to remove union
Texas & California (August 1, 2024) – Hundreds of In-Home Experts from AT&T Mobility locations across Texas and California have just signed onto petitions seeking elections to remove Communications Workers of America (CWA) union officials from power over their workplaces.
Matthew Gonzales, an In-Home Expert for AT&T Mobility, filed a “union decertification petition” with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of his coworkers across 13 AT&T Mobility locations in Southern California. Samantha Cain, a Texas-based In-Home Expert, did the same for her colleagues across at least eight locations in Eastern and Southern Texas. Both Gonzales and Cain received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys in filing the petitions.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering votes to certify and decertify unions. Gonzales and Cain each collected employee signatures on their respective petitions far exceeding the 30% threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. Both filed the decertification petitions in July in order to challenge so-called “card check” unionization campaigns that CWA union bosses foisted on their coworkers.
Under card check, union officials can bypass the secret ballot election process, which is the most secure and reliable way to determine if employees want to unionize. During a card check drive, union officials can make face-to-face demands of employees as they seek to collect union authorization cards from a majority of the workplace. This makes the process a breeding ground for coercive and intimidating tactics.
Because Texas has Right to Work protections, union officials can’t force private sector workers like Cain and her coworkers to join or pay money to a union as a condition of getting or keeping a job. That isn’t the case in California. The state’s lack of a Right to Work law lets union officials demand that workers pay union dues or fees just to stay employed. However, in both states, union officials in a unionized workplace enjoy monopoly bargaining privileges, which allow them to contract and speak for every worker in the unit – even those that voted against the union or otherwise oppose its presence.
If the AT&T Mobility In-Home Experts win both decertification elections, well over 800 workers will be free from CWA union officials’ monopoly bargaining power. They will join over 100 In-Home Experts from across Tennessee, who successfully challenged a card check in a similar effort against CWA officials in March. In all three efforts, CWA union officials have tried to “merge” units of AT&T In-Home Experts into a larger unit comprised of thousands of employees, which would effectively trap workers in the union because petitioning for a decertification vote in such a large unit would be virtually impossible.
Biden-Harris NLRB Will Soon Block Workers from Challenging Dubious Union “Card Check” Drives
CWA union officials have already used their card check “victory” to claim monopoly bargaining power over both the California In-Home Experts and Texas In-Home Experts. However, Foundation-backed 2020 reforms to the NLRB’s election rules give both sets of workers an opportunity to challenge the CWA union’s ascent to power.
Collectively referred to as the “Election Protection Rule,” the reforms permit employees to submit decertification petitions within a 45-day window after the finalization of a card check. The Election Protection Rule also prevents union officials from manipulating charges they file alleging employer misconduct to block workers from casting ballots in a decertification election, among other things.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris NLRB in Washington, DC, issued a final rule last Friday that will undo the Election Protection Rule and make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. While the rule change will not take effect in time to stop the AT&T Mobility employees from having the decertification votes they requested, it will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future.
“If Ms. Cain and Mr. Gonzales had filed their decertification petitions just a few weeks later, hundreds of AT&T Mobility workers across Texas and California would be summarily denied their right to vote out union officials who seized power over them in a hasty and coercive manner,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “This is yet another example of the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to heap legal privileges on its union boss political allies, all at the expense of workers who just want to exercise their free choice when it comes to deciding who should speak for them in the workplace.
“American workers don’t deserve to be stripped of this freedom, and those who are prevented from voting out unwanted union bosses due to this cynical rule change should not hesitate to contact the Foundation to explore their legal options,” Mix added.
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.
