Wisconsin food processing workers oust Teamsters Local 695 after a majority of employees vote to remove the union

Oakfield, WI (April 3, 2023) – Seneca Foods employees in Oakfield, Wisconsin, have overwhelmingly voted to free themselves from the unwanted so-called “representation” of Teamsters Local 695. Andrew Collien, a warehouse employee at Seneca Foods, kick-started the decertification process that led to the workers’ vote to remove the union. Collien received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

Collien and his coworkers filed the petition for a decertification vote with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in late February. In the petition, Seneca Foods workers formally requested a vote to determine whether or not the union should be removed.

On March 30, the NLRB regional office conducted a secret ballot election at the plant, resulting in a 17-10 vote to remove the union. Union officials have seven days to file objections to seek to overturn the workers’ vote. Otherwise, the results will become final.

Teamsters Local 695, which also controls the company’s truck drivers, maintenance, processing, and janitorial employees, originally had a five-year union contract with Seneca Foods, running until May 2025. With the results of the workers’ decertification election, however, the Teamsters’ contract was terminated two years early, sparing workers from the remainder of the agreement.

The Seneca Foods employees were fortunate to cast their votes just more than one month after filing their petition. However, this is not always the case for many workers around the nation who seek to remove unions they oppose.

A major issue workers face in decertifying unpopular unions is how prone the NLRB’s decertification process is to union boss-created roadblocks. These roadblocks can include often-baseless “blocking charges” brought by union officials against employers with the intention of delaying or even blocking employee-led decertification elections entirely.

Right to Work Foundation-backed “Election Protection Rule” reforms the NLRB issued in 2020 have helped make it somewhat easier for workers to remove unwanted union officials by limiting some of the ways union lawyers manipulate blocking charges. However, the Biden NLRB is currently engaged in rulemaking to roll back these protections and make it much more difficult for workers to decertify an unpopular union. If the Biden-appointed NLRB is successful, it could take months or even years for workers to hold a decertification election.

Seneca Foods employees are just one example of workers looking to remove unions exercising excess control over them. Worker interest in removing controlling unions is growing nationwide. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys are fielding numerous requests for free legal assistance in decertification cases, such as Collien and his coworkers’ case against Teamsters Local 695.

In fact, the NLRB’s own data shows that a unionized private sector worker is more than twice as likely to be involved in a decertification effort as a nonunion worker is to be involved in a unionization campaign.

“We congratulate Mr. Collien and his coworkers in successfully exercising their right to vote to free themselves of unwanted union so-called ‘representation,’” observed Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “These workers knew the union well and decided, rather than having two more years of the union-imposed contract, they would be better off without the union.”

“Seneca Foods workers sent Teamsters Local 695 union officials a clear message, and union officials should respect that decision and not seek to disenfranchise these workers by asking the NLRB to overturn their vote,” 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.