Trucking Company Employees Force Out Teamsters Union Bosses in Virginia, Similar Ouster Could Soon Come in New Jersey

Efforts come in the face of anti-Right to Work push by Teamsters bosses and Teamster-backed Biden-Harris Labor Board rule change to disenfranchise workers

In two recent efforts by trucking employees across the Eastern Seaboard to free their workplaces from Teamsters union officials, a group of Virginia workers has successfully forced out Teamsters Local 322, while a similar effort by Philadelphia-area workers against Teamsters Local 500 continues.

Nelson Chilson, a truck driver for NAPA Transportation in Richmond, VA, submitted a petition earlier this month in which the majority of his coworkers asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a vote to remove Teamsters Local 322 union bosses. Just days earlier, a group of Philadelphia-area Penske Logistics truckers led by Shawn Shute also filed a petition demanding the same kind of NLRB election to oust Teamsters Local 500. Both Chilson and Shute are receiving free legal aid from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Both Chilson’s and Shute’s decertification petitions contain employee signatures well in excess of the threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

All truck drivers from each facility are eligible to vote in each union decertification election. However, in Chilson’s workplace it appears that Teamsters Local 332 officials are attempting to flee the workplace ahead of a worker vote, as they’ve filed a “disclaimer of interest” renouncing their desire to continue their power over the Virginia workers, perhaps to avoid a ballot-box embarrassment.

As for the Philly-area Penske Logistics workers, their continued effort is higher stakes because they are based in New Jersey, a state that lacks Right to Work protections. In such states, union officials can enforce contracts that require workers to pay dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job. In contrast, in Right to Work states like Virginia, union membership and dues payment are strictly voluntary.

However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work jurisdictions, union bosses can use their monopoly bargaining privileges to subject all workers in a unionized facility to one-size fits-all contracts – even those who voted against the union or otherwise oppose it. A successful decertification election ends union officials’ forced-dues and monopoly bargaining powers in a workplace.

Pro-Union Boss Shifts in NLRB Policy Will Disenfranchise Workers

Despite an over 50% increase in the number of decertification petitions filed annually over the last four years, Biden-Harris NLRB bureaucrats recently repealed key reforms (known collectively as the “Election Protection Rule”) that made it easier for workers to request decertification elections. Now, union officials can manipulate often-unproven allegations against management (also known as “blocking charges”) to stop workers from exercising their right to vote out a union, and can also stop workers from requesting decertification elections to challenge a union’s ascent to power via “card check,” an unsecure process that bypasses the traditional secret-ballot vote process.

The policy shift comes as Teamsters union officials push a vehemently anti-Right to Work political agenda, despite nearly 80% of current union members expressing support for the idea that workers should never be forced to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment, according to a recent Rasmussen Media Group poll.

“Despite union boss rhetoric touting ‘solidarity,’ there has never been more evidence that union officials – Teamsters officials especially – are pushing an agenda out of touch with the rank-and-file,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Whether it’s continued worker attempts to decertify Teamsters unions, the Teamsters hierarchy ignoring the rank-and-file’s preferences regarding policies and candidates, or worker-filed unfair labor practice charges against Teamsters militants, employees are growing wise to the fact that the chiefs of their union may prize power and influence far above their individual rights.

“The Foundation’s cases for Mr. Shute and Mr. Chilson are just a couple examples of workers declaring their independence from unwanted union officials, and Foundation attorneys will stand with them and many other workers even in the face of opposition from both union chiefs and hostile federal bureaucrats,” Mix added.

 

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