NLRB Regional Director has certified that Teamsters bosses lost decertification election
Santa Maria, CA (April 1, 2021) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, delivery drivers at Allied Central Coast Distributing in Santa Maria, California, have successfully freed themselves from unwanted monopoly “representation” by union officials of Teamsters Local 986.
Petitioner Julian Marroquin submitted a decertification petition with the signatures of many of his coworkers to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting an NLRB-supervised secret ballot election so the drivers could vote out the unpopular Teamsters union. Due to COVID-19, the vote was conducted by mail. On March 23, 2021, the NLRB reported that Marroquin’s unit had voted successfully to decertify the Teamsters union as their monopoly bargaining representative.
With no union challenges to the result, the Board certified the results of the election on March 31. Thus, the drivers are no longer subject to monopoly union representation. Because California lacks a Right to Work law to ensure union membership and financial support is strictly voluntary, the result protects the drivers from being forced by union officials to pay dues or fees or lose their jobs.
Marroquin was able to secure a decertification vote just months after he originally filed his petition in December 2020. It often takes far longer for workers to remove an unwanted union. Union officials frequently attempt to delay or block decertification votes by filing “blocking charges.” These are unfair labor practice charges against the employer that can be used to hold up an election, even when they have nothing to do with the employees’ dissatisfaction with the union.
Union officials’ ability to use this tactic to block or delay votes has been limited by recent NLRB rulemaking, finalized in 2020. Under the NLRB’s new policy, which draws on comments filed by the National Right to Work Foundation, union charges cannot indefinitely stall employee votes, and in most instances votes occur without delay.
“Blocking charge reforms have greatly reduced union bosses’ ability to force workers into years long legal battles just to be free themselves form Big Labor coercion,” said National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix. “Workers who object to union dues payments shouldn’t need to fight an uphill battle to decertify a union just to cut off union financial support. That’s why every worker in America needs Right to Work protections that make union dues payments strictly voluntary.”
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.
