Trump Labor Board urged to reconsider Lamons Gasket precedent that prevents workers from decertifying a union installed through a card check drive

Washington, D.C. (May 18, 2018) – Today, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys filed an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington seeking to overturn an Obama Labor Board decision that blocks workers from holding a decertification vote for up to one year after a union is installed through an abuse-prone card check unionization drive.

Foundation staff attorneys represent a group of Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based clerical workers for shipping company USF Holland. The workers oppose Teamsters Union Local 200’s monopoly representation and filed the signatures necessary to hold a decertification election to remove the union. However, the election petition was dismissed when the NLRB Regional Director applied the controversial 2011 Lamons Gasket ruling that bars workers from holding a secret ballot decertification vote for one year after they have been unionized through the card check process.

In Lamons Gasket, an Obama-selected NLRB overturned the 2007 National Right to Work Foundation-won Dana decision that gave workers the opportunity to challenge card check unionization with a secret ballot vote. Under the Dana precedent, workers can collect signatures to request a secret ballot election during a 45-day window following notice that they have been forced into union representation by a card check organizing drive.

The Dana ruling provided an important, although limited, protection for workers against the coercive practices frequently associated with card check, which allow organizers to bully or mislead employees into signing cards that are then counted as “votes” toward unionization. When the Big Labor-friendly Obama NLRB overruled Dana with Lamons Gasket, it meant no matter how many workers signed a petition seeking to oust a union, they would have to wait at least a year before they could file for a secret ballot vote.

The workers in the appeal filed today are six women employed in USF Holland’s clerical office in Milwaukee who object to being placed under the Teamster union’s monopoly “representation” without a secret ballot vote. In January, Teamsters organizers had actually filed to hold an NLRB-supervised vote but had the election cancelled just a week before it was set to occur. Company officials then gave in to the Teamsters’ demands and recognized the union on the basis of the card check.

In response the workers filed for a secret ballot election to remove the Teamsters, but were told they could not hold one because of the Lamons Gasket precedent. Their appeal asks the new Trump NLRB to not only overturn that Obama-NLRB precedent, but to remove all limitations on workers filing to decertify a union following unionization through card check.

“The disastrous Lamons Gasket decision was one of many by the Obama Labor Board that elevated the powers of union bosses over the rights of individual employees, and it should be swiftly overturned,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Nothing in the National Labor Relations Act says that workers should be denied a secret ballot decertification vote on the basis of a card check recognition, which the Act and U.S. Supreme Court view as inherently inferior to an NLRB-run vote.”

“The Teamsters have a long and well-deserved reputation for corruption and violence, so it’s no surprise that the women in this case who filed for a decertification vote would prefer the privacy of a secret ballot to the coercion and pressure tactics inherent in a union card check organizing drive,” 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.