Right to Work Wins Big in the Beehive State
Utah Right to Work victory: New law ends union monopoly bargaining and protects public servants' freedom to choose their own representation.
How Biden Appointees Trampled Workers’ Rights
Big Labor Foes of Secret-Ballot Votes Won Again and Again
Right to Work supporters across America had many reasons to applaud President Donald Trump’s move in late January to evict Biden-selected National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox before their terms in office were set to expire.
Ms. Abruzzo was determined to dramatically expand Big Labor’s power to impose itself on workers without their ever being allowed to vote in a secret-ballot election — and, in 2023, Ms. Wilcox and two other Biden NLRB members issued a decision that fulfilled Ms. Abruzzo’s wishes.
Ms. Abruzzo ignored innumerable legal precedents in her twisted arguments for why signed cards extracted from workers in the presence of union organizers should be preferred over secret-ballot votes as a means of ascertaining where workers stand on unionization.
For more than half a century, federal policy has generally allowed an employer to insist, without further comment, that a secret-ballot election be held before a union is granted monopoly-bargaining power over his or her employees.
Under Cemex, Unions May Often Be Foisted on Workers Even After Most Have Voted ‘No’
In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Big Labor-inspired challenge to this policy in Linden Lumber. As Justice William O. Douglas explained on behalf of the court in his opinion, “the policy of encouraging secret elections . . . is favored” under the National Labor Relations Act.
But Ms. Abruzzo sought to make it a so-called “unfair labor practice” for an employer to refuse to recognize a union as employees’ “exclusive” spokesperson on matters considering pay, benefits, and work rules based on signed cards alone.
Ms. Abruzzo wanted to force employers to prove that union organizers had actually broken the law in extracting signed cards from workers in order for a secret-ballot vote to occur. The historical unreliability of cards wouldn’t do.
Unless there was some kind of direct evidence for forgery or illegal intimidation, she sought to leave employers with no ability to protect their employees against Big Labor bullying, intimidation and harassment.
Her vision was largely realized in the 2023 Cemex case, which handed Big Labor sweeping power to impose itself on workers without their ever being allowed to vote in a secret-ballot election.
Workers now face the threat of a so-called “Cemex bargaining order,” which gives NLRB bureaucrats radically expanded power to impose an unwanted union in situations where workers never had a chance to vote in an election, and even when they have already voted and chosen to reject unionization.
The Biden NLRB began issuing such orders in June 2024, when it demanded that Red Rocks Casino bargain with a union that claimed to represent casino employees, even though they had voted 627-534 against unionization.
Right to Work Hopeful NLRB Will Reverse Course Under Trump Appointees
Fortunately, before the damage from Cemex could spread even further, Donald Trump took office and stopped NLRB radicals in their tracks by firing Ms. Abruzzo and Ms. Wilcox.
Trump-appointed Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen recently issued a memo halting many of Ms. Abruzzo’s anti-worker schemes.
“The early signs are encouraging at the Trump NLRB,” said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix. “Stopping the string of anti-worker, pro-union boss decisions coming out of the Board was a valuable first step. That’s why Committee staff encouraged President Trump to fire Ms. Abruzzo and Ms. Wilcox.
“Now Mr. Trump must appoint genuinely pro-worker lawyers to the NLRB.
“One way to emphasize his commitment to putting workers first would be to nominate to the NLRB an attorney who has extensive experience representing workers, rather than companies or union bosses, before the Board.
“Trump appointees should be committed to enforcing the law as written, fully protecting the statutory right to refrain from joining a labor union as well as the right to join. They should actively resist attempts to give union bosses even more coercive power over workers.”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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