UAW Voted Out Again, Will Obama NLRB Finally Certify Votes

For a fourth time, Alabama auto workers voted in a decertification election that could free then from a United Auto Workers union (UAW) monopoly bargaining contract. Employees were helped with legal advice from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

From the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris:

Fourth Time’s a Charm for Alabama Workers Looking to Leave Union

UAW decertified at ball bearings plant after fourth vote

Employees at NTN-Bower Corporation in Hamilton, Alabama, voted 82-50 to kick UAW (United Auto Workers) Local 1990 out of the ball bearings plant. Friday’s secret ballot election was the fourth arranged to determine the union’s future at the company. The workers won the right to withdraw from the union, which has represented them since 1976, after a two-year campaign.

Workers voted to decertify the UAW in an earlier election, but a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) panel threw out the election after labor organizers complained of management interference. The UAW prevailed in the third election held in January 2015. Those results were thrown out after it was revealed that 148 ballots were cast even though only 139 employees voted.

Union dissenters petitioned the NLRB for a fourth election with help from the National Right to Work Committee (NRTW). Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the group, said that the workers overcame a stacked deck of pro-labor NLRB regulators and powerful union officials.

“The Obama NLRB seems to have adopted the Roach Motel model of forced unionism, focused completely on making it as easy as possible for union organizers to unionize a workplace while making it nearly impossible for workers to remove an unwanted union,” he said.

The NTN-Bower workers may have rejected the union by an overwhelming margin, but the anti-UAW coalition is not out of the woods yet. The UAW still has time to challenge the ballot vote. [read full article here]

What is a decertification election?

When employed in a workplace where a union has the right to “represent,” and collectively bargain for, all employees. This is frequently referred to as “exclusive representation,” but it is really the government-granted monopoly bargaining privilege that gives union officials the power to make contracts that workers may not like while barring employees from negotiating their own terms of employment. Except in Right to Work states, these contracts almost always include a provision which mandates that employees be fired for not paying dues to a union they do not wish to support.

Though it is generally an uphill battle, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) allows employees to call for a special election to get rid of the union as their “exclusive representative.” This is called a Decertification Election, because employees revoke the union’s “certification” to be the “exclusive bargaining representative.” In effect, the union is voted out of the workplace.

A decertification election has only one purpose and effect: to remove the union as the “exclusive bargaining representative” of the employees. (source NRTW.org)