Southern Bakeries Worker Moves to Intervene in Federal Court to Stop NLRB from Foisting Unwanted Union on Workers

Unprecedented new Obama Labor Board policy is to go to court to block employee attempts to remove an unwanted union with a majority petition to their employer

Texarkana, AR (May 16, 2014) – A Southern Bakeries, LLC worker has moved to intervene to block a federal agency from foisting unwanted union representation back on his workplace after he and his coworkers overwhelmingly expressed their desire to remove the union.

With free legal assistance from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, Southern Bakeries worker John Hankins filed the motion in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, Texarkana Division.

After the workers at the Southern Bakeries facility in Hope voted in a secret-ballot election to determine whether they wanted to remove the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Local 111 union officials from their workplace, the union hierarchy filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to impound the workers’ ballots.

Hankins and two-thirds of his coworkers then signed a petition to remove the union from their workplace. After the workers presented the petition to their employer, Southern Bakeries withdrew recognition of the union as the workers’ monopoly bargaining representative as the law prescribes.

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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.